Amit Shah to kick off BJP's Mizoram campaign

BJP president Amit Shah will address more than 10,000 party workers at Mizoram capital Aizawl on Wednesday, as the party gears up to cash in on the “anti-incumbency” factor in next month’s Assembly elections to wrest power from the Congress.

The Mizoram election is seen more significant for the BJP as it has set its target to make the Northeast “Congress-mukt.”

Shah, who reached Guwahati on Tuesday evening, is scheduled to inaugurate the party’s new office in Aizawl at 11 am following which he is slated to address the booth-level workers in an indoor stadium, BJP Mizoram state president J V Hluna told DH on Wednesday from Aizawl. Shah will also hold a meeting with the party leaders and discuss the strategies for the campaign.

The 40-member Mizoram Assembly goes to polls on November 28.

The BJP, at present, has no seat in the Mizoram Assembly. The party has already announced that it would contest in all seats, despite the fact that the Opposition Mizo National Front (MNF), an ally of the Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a forum of regional parties floated by the BJP, too is contesting in all the seats. The BJP had formed the NEDA soon after it wrested power from the Congress in Assam in May 2016 after forging an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bodo People’s Front (BPF), two other regional parties.

Apart from the focus on the anti-incumbency factor, the BJP would make development and the alleged failure of the Lal Thanhawla-led Congress government as their major poll plank, Hluna said.

AGP miffed at BJP

The AGP, an ally of the BJP-led Assam government on Tuesday announced that it would launch a protest against the NDA government’s Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 with a protest rally on October 23 in Guwahati.

The bill seeks to offer citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who were victims of “religious persecution.” The regional party fears that the bill would allow large “illegal migrants” from Bangladesh living in Assam get Indian citizenship and reduce the state’s indigenous communities into a minority.

The party demands that citizenship issue in Assam must be solved based on March 24, 1971, cut-off date, irrespective of religious consideration, as agreed in the 1985 Assam Accord which was signed following the six-year-long anti-foreigner movement.

Former Assam chief minister and senior AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta recently said the regional part would walk out of the alliance if the BJP passes the bill, which is now pending with a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

The BJP has 61 MLAs in the 126-member house while the AGP has 14 and the BPF 12.