Mizoram: 2018 saw Cong losing its last fort in Northeast

Political developments dominated 2018 in Mizoram and as the year drew to a close, the state saw installation of a new government led by rebel-turned-politician Zoramthanga, who was back with a bang after being in political wilderness for two assembly terms.

Zoramthanga's Mizo National Front (MNF) trounced the Congress to bring to an end its 10-year rule since 2008 in the state in December.

Seventy-four-year-old Zoramthanga was sworn in as the chief minister for the third time on December 15. He had earlier headed the government in 1998 and 2003.

For the first time, the swearing-in ceremony was marked by Bible reading, prayer and singing of a Christian gospel song.

Mizoram is a predominant Christian state.

The Congress managed to bag only five seats while the MNF secured 26 seats in the 40-member legislature. The Congress's slump was sharp considering the fact that it had 34 seats in the last election in 2013.

Though the BJP's pet assertion of "Congress-mukt" came true in the Northeast, the party could not do much in Mizoram where it managed to win only one seat.

After taking oath, Zoramthanga said that the MNF has now no intention to leave the BJP-led NDA and the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) although it was under fire for joining hands with saffron forces.

The state witnessed a terrible disaster on June 4 when 10 people, seven of them belonging to a family, were killed and one person was injured when a building occupied by two families was swept away by landslide caused by heavy rain in Lunglawn area of south Mizoram's Lunglei town.

Thousands of homes were destroyed, hundreds of families evacuated to safer places and hundreds of houses and large areas of cultivation lands inundated by flood due to monsoon fury forcing the state government to close down all the educational institutions for two days, due to heavy rain.

Simultaneous outbreak of the dreaded Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) and the Classical Swine Fever (CSF) from early March resulted in the death of around 4,000 pigs across the state and was only declared as contained in early August.

The PRRS had killed over 8,000 pigs and piglets in 2013 and 2017.

The Mizoram Legislative Assembly on June 28 unanimously adopted a resolution expressing opposition to the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016.

The resolution moved by the then Congress government had said, "That this House resolves to impress upon Government of India its unequivocal opposition to the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 that seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make illegal migrants eligible to be given Indian Citizenship on the basis of religion."