AIZAWL: Mizoram Chief Minister and Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) leader Lalduhoma on Tuesday criticized past state governments, stating that they did nothing significant in implementing the peace accord signed with Hmar militants in 2018.
The ZPM-Hmar People's Convention alliance on the same day launched its election campaign for the 12-member Sinlung Hills Council elections across three locations.
Lalduhoma said, "Though signing the peace accord to put an end to the long years of fighting and violence, the successive governments were not able to uphold it." He claimed Hmar does not owe the parties any loyalty, to which the latter have been untrusted towards themselves.
Lalduhoma also said that erstwhile governments did not have genuine leadership for handling the Sinlung Hills Council (SHC), maintaining that they had given only Rs 1.5 crores as a development fund.
On the other hand, he said his government has distributed an extra Rs 1.9 crore besides Rs 75 lakh coming from Lok Sabha member Richard Vanlalhmangaiha's MP fund for development works in the region.
Holding much hope from the ZPM-HPC alliance for the next election, Lalduhoma focused on the flagship development undertakings of his government for the Hmar community in three crucial ones: road connectivity, education, and public health."\
Among that, he included constructing the priority bridge bridging the Tuivai River between the SHC area and Manipur's Pherzawl district.
The Hmar People's Convention (HPC) had been an armed group since 1989, demanding an autonomous district under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Decades of fighting led to the Congress government signing a peace agreement in 1994 that was followed by the formation of the Sinlung Hills Development Council (SHDC).
This was however abominated by a section and dissatisfaction with this setup led to the formation of a secessionist faction known as HPC (Democratic) or HPC(D), which demanded complete autonomy.
Eventually, they signed a new peace accord in April 2018, which granted the SHDC greater autonomy and is today known as the Sinlung Hills Council (SHC). It has 12 elected seats and 2 nominated seats with an election held in November 2019.
The second election for the Sinlung Hills Council will take place on 5 November. As many as 23,789 voters will exercise their right and thus select the future of 49 candidates. In these 49 candidates, 11,914 are women.
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