Aizawl, Oct 30: Women folks in Mizoram now have higher hopes of representation in the state legislative assembly in the upcoming elections to the 40-member state legislature with women candidates being fielded by larger political parties.
In the last state assembly election held in 2018, there were 15 women candidates amongst 201 candidates with 14 of them having no chances to win. The lone woman fielded by the then ruling Congress – former Minister of State VanlalawmpuiiChawngthu – also lost to Lalchamliana of the Mizo National Front (now home minister) in Hrangturzo assembly seat.
Chawngthu, though earlier elected in a by-election in 2014 from the constituency, won and vacated by the then chief minister Lal Thanhawla, managed to garner 29.72 per cent of the votes as against Lalchamliana’s 35.62 per cent. She lost, due to a strong anti-incumbency wave against the Congress which ruled the state for 2 consecutive terms as well as being a woman.
The MNF, in 2018, did not field a single woman candidate and the Congress also fielded Chawngthu most probably because she was the former Minister of State and sitting MLA of the seat.
The BJP, which had an extremely slim chance of winning the polls, gave party tickets to 6 women and predictably all of them lost the polls. ‘ZoramThar’ a group of spiritualists, fielded 5 women nominees, but all the ‘ZoramThar’ independent candidates, including males, lost miserably forfeiting their deposits.
The then newly formed party Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) fielded 2 women candidates and all of them lost the polls.
Representation of women in the state legislature has become a possibility in the upcoming 2023 state assembly polls with the bigger parties, having winning chances – MNF, Congress and ZPM – fielding 2 women candidates each. A total of 16 female candidates are in the fray for the coming election to the state legislature.
Local political analysts think that at least one woman candidate each in the 3 big political parties may have chance to win this time around, if not more.
Though the saffron party fielded 4 women candidates initially, it was forced to drop one of them – Judy Zohmingthangi by succumbing to the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) or Mizo students’ federation’s diktat that no woman, who marries outside the tribal community should be fielded by the political parties.
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Anyhow, none of the saffron party’s 3 women nominees might have a chance to win given the constituencies where they are contesting. The same goes for 4 women independent candidates put up by two spiritual groups.
None of the political parties fielded women candidates in the first election to the legislature of Mizoram union territory in April 1972. There were 2 women among the independent candidates, but lost the polls.
The first political party Mizo Union nominated Saptawni, who became the first ever legislator in the legislature of the union territory. People’s Conference (PC) party fielded L. Thanmawii in the Serchhip assembly seat, who became the first elected woman representative of the legislature in May 1978. The PC government led by the then chief minister Brig. T. Sailo fell due to defections within six months and Thangmawii again won from the Aizawl East seat in the April 1979 elections.
Brig. Sailo’s government inducted K. Thansiami in nominated seat in 1979 and it was the first and last time 2 women legislators were sitting together in the Mizoram assembly.
The Congress party which won the elections in 1984 by defeating the PC party nominated Rokungi for the nominated seat but did not last the full term due to the signing of the Mizo Peace Accord in 1986 resulting in the erstwhile underground MNF to form a coalition in the six-month interim government.
MNF, led by its supremo Laldenga contested the first Mizoram state legislature in February 1987 when Lalhlimpuii, daughter-in-law of Zamanthanga, one of the signatories of the party’s declaration of Independence from the Indian Union, contested as the lone woman candidate sponsored by the MNF won.
Lalhlimpuii became the first-ever woman minister in Mizoram as he was inducted into the Laldenga ministry.
The second woman minister was Vanlalawmpuii Chawngtu, inducted into the Lal Thanhawla government 30 years later. There is no woman representation in the current 8th Assembly of the state.
Mizo society is strictly a patriarchal one where women have no role in the administration of the families, not to speak of the administration of the chiefs (which were like Greek city-states), they have no say in politics even after a large number of females were exposed to modern education.
In the olden days, women were even prohibited from entering ‘Zawlbuk’ or male dormitories where able-bodied males lived together and formed an army-like defence force for the village.
However, with 33 per cent reservation for women in the Aizawl Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Lunglei Municipal Council (LMC), as well as village councils in the rural areas and local councils in the urban areas, more women are represented at the lower of administration or local self-government.
Before the implementation of the 33 per cent reservation for women in the Parliament and the state legislature, as recently passed by both houses of the Parliament, there was a minimum opportunity for Mizo women folks to participate in the decision-making bodies of the central and state legislatures.
