Lok Sabha polls 2024: Mizoram to vote in one phase on April 19 for solitary seat

Vote counting in Mizoram will take place on June 4.

The Lok Sabha election in Mizoram will be held in a single phase on April 19, 2024. The north-eastern state has only one seat and will send one elected representative to the 18th Lok Sabha. Voting will be completed in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections itself.

The Lok Sabha elections is being held in seven phases across the country, beginning April 19. The results of all the states will be announced together on June 4. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Saturday that the first gazette notification will be on March 20. The last date for candidates to submit their nominations is March 27 (Wednesday). The last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 30 (Saturday) and the first phase kicks off on April 19, as per the schedule released by the Election Commission.

Total number of voters in Mizoram stands at 8,61,277, of which 4,14,777 are male, while 4,41,520 are female and 4,980 are service voters, according to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Madhup Vyas. First time voters who are in the age group 18-19 years stands at 36,214. The gender ratio is 1,064 females to every 1000 males in Mizoram and of all its districts, Mamit is the only one with more male voters than females.

There are 1,276 polling stations in Mizoram, which is 101 more than that of the 2019 Lok Sabha General Elections. 

There are a total of 11 districts in Mizoram, 23 sub-divisions and 26 blocks. There is 1 parliamentary constituency and 40 assembly constituencies. The total number of polling stations in the state is 1276, of which 525 fall in urban areas and 751 in rural areas. 

Parties and alliances in the state include Mizo National Front (MNF) and Zoram People's Movement (ZPM), holding the maximum sway, followed by the I.N.D.I.A. bloc and the BJP-led NDA.

ZPM was formed just before the 2018 Assembly polls, led by Chief Minister Lalduhoma, a former IPS officer who was the security officer of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

ZPM came to power for the first time in Christian-dominated Mizoram, securing 27 seats in the 40-member Assembly in the November 7, 2023 polls.

Five months after the November 2023 Mizoram Assembly polls, ZPM will fight its first-ever Parliamentary election as the state’s lone constituency votes in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections.

The ZPM had defeated the militant outfit-turned-political party — the Mizo National Front (MNF) in the Assembly elections — and will take it on again, besides Congress, in the upcoming parliamentary polls.

Earlier, both the Congress and the MNF have governed Mizoram for many years since it became the 23rd state of India on February 20, 1987.

CM Lalduhoma had said his party ZPM would neither ally with the Congress-led I.N.D.I.A. bloc nor the BJP-led NDA. Like the MNF, the ZPM has opposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the Uniform Civil Code and promises to take up issues concerning the Mizo tradition, culture, and ethnicity.

Mizoram’s solitary Lok Sabha seat is reserved for the Schedule Tribe community, which comprises around 95 per cent of the state’s 1.2 million population.

(With PTI and DHNS inputs)