EC sets the ball rolling on replacing Mizoram CEO

GUWAHATI: Following unrelenting public protests in Mizoram, the Election Commission on Saturday initiated the process to replace Mizoram chief electoral officer SB Shashank. The state goes to the polls on November 28.

An EC source said, "It was decided at today's meeting that a panel of names of those who can take over as the Mizoram chief electoral officer will be sought from the state chief secretary." Arvind Ray, Mizoram's chief secretary, had chaired a meeting last Monday - organized by the state government and attended by the NGO Coordination Committee - that sought Shashank's ouster.

With this, the resolution of a part of the crisis brewing in Mizoram appears close. The other issue that stirred a hornet's nest in the poll-bound state - the voting rights of Bru tribals - is yet to be addressed. "The demand to make Bru voters from refugee camps in Tripura cast their vote in Mizoram will be taken up after the new chief electoral officer is appointed," the EC source added. A complaint against principal secretary (home) Lalnunmawia Chuaungo that Shashank had shot off to the EC started the chain of events that led to the present crisis. Chuaungo, Shashank had complained, was interfering with the poll process by questioning the need for additional security during the election and by challenging the validity of identity slips (used by Bru voters) for electoral purposes. Mizo organizations saw Chuaungo's subsequent removal as an unfair move on the EC's part. Chuaungo is a Mizo IAS officer. Besides, the "special arrangements" for Bru voters, who would be allowed to exercise their franchise from refugee camps in Tripura, catalyzed the protests.

In a span of four days, two EC teams visited Mizoram to discuss the concerns of the protesters. The first ended inconclusively and was held after thousands of protesters, who had gheraoed the CEO's office, stood down for a while. A day before the second EC team arrived in Mizoram to hold discussions, the protesters, led by the influential NGO Coordination Committee, had threatened to not allow elections in Mizoram at all if the EC did not accede to their demands.