BJP making inroads in Mizoram ahead of 2023 Assembly elections

The Bharatiya Janata Party sets its sights on the last frontier in the Northeast. The saffron party has started making inroads in Mizoram, ahead of the assembly elections in the border state in 2023, where it has had little presence.

Last month, it won 12 of the 25 council seats in the Mara Autonomous District Council (MADC), one of the three councils in the state, but the ruling Mizo National Front joined hands with the Congress to finally form the council. As state leaders pursue a string of concerted efforts, they have passed a political resolution in the state executive meeting held in Aizawl last week, asking the party’s central command to rethink the inclusion of MNF in the Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

State president Vanlalhmuaka told DH that among the steps they are taking up is the strengthening of booth committees and spreading details about the beneficiaries of the BJP government’s schemes.

“We have gone from strength to strength, and the focus now is to tell every household about the scheme of the BJP, and how they can benefit from it. We will tell them that these schemes are of the BJP government and not the state government,” Vanlalmuaka said.

He said that the priority right now is to have booths as well as mandal committees. “We have presence in mandals in 32 of the state’s 40 assembly constituencies, and committees in more than 600 of the state’s 1221 booths,” he said.

Prior to the MADC elections, Vanlalmuaka said, the BJP registered growth in the Lai Autonomous District Council (LADC) as well – it registered only 500 voters in the earlier elections, but ended up with 11,000 votes in the last elections in 2020.

He said that people are beginning to join the party. “We had eight servicemen join the party earlier this week, and more young people are joining us,” he said.

Mizoram, a Christian majority state, has never had a BJP government or had a government with the BJP in alliance, unlike the other six states in the Northeast. Some of the most vocal protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which stoked fire in the region, came from the border state.

But the BJP is not worried, Vanlalmuaka said. “There have been a lot of misconceptions about what is actually in the Act, and it is our job to ensure that the misconceptions go,” he said.

And yet, for a Christian majority state, will it be easy for the saffron party to win over. “We are showing the people the benefits of PM Modi’s schemes, and the development in eight years. People are beginning to be convinced that we mean progress,” he said.

Vanlalmuaka said that, as of now, the party has a significant base in as many as 16 of the state’s 40 seats. “We may or may not form government in 2023, but without us, there is no government.”