 "Providing shelter to Zo people ignoring Centre's directives: Mizoram CM")
Asking people to vote for the MNF, Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga on Monday said he was committed to the cause of Mizo nationalism, and his government was providing shelter to Zo ethnic immigrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh defying the Centre's directive to deport them.
Addressing a function to mark the 62nd anniversary of MNF, he said that he had "threatened" to resign when he was asked to pull back personnel of the Mizoram Police from the state's border with Assam during the 2021 clashes.
"Young people will continue to champion Mizo nationalism amid the crisis faced by our brothers and sisters from neighbouring states and countries," he said.
"Defying the Centre's directive to deport them, my government has been protecting the Zo ethnic people from Myanmar and Bangladesh. We will continue to protect our brothers and sisters from Myanmar and Bangladesh, ignoring the Centre's directions," he added.
Over 31,000 people from Myanmar and Bangladesh have taken shelter in different parts of Mizoram, according to state officials.
The Myanmar nationals, mostly from Chin state, fled to Mizoram following a military coup in the neighbouring country in February 2021, while the asylum seekers from Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) came to the state after a military offensive against an ethnic insurgent group, they said.
Mizoram shares a 510-km long porous border with Myanmar and a 318-km boundary with Bangladesh.
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Zoramthanga said that the wind of Mizo nationalism is blowing in different parts of the state, and more people are coming out in support of his party.
"The MNF's prospect is improving steadily. Our God will not forsake us midway. He will provide us the required number of MLAs to form the next government," he claimed.
Without sharing the details, Zoramthanga said he had threatened to resign as the chief minister when he was asked to pull back the state police forces from the border with Assam.
"After that, they relented," he said, referring to the 2021 clash at the inter-state border.
A violent clash between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram in July 2021 claimed the lives of six people.
The border dispute between the two states is a long-standing issue, which stemmed from two colonial demarcations in 1875 and 1933.
There is no proper ground demarcation between the two neighbouring states after Mizoram was carved out as a Union Territory from Assam in 1972.
Mizoram will vote for its 40-member assembly on November 7, and the votes will be counted on December 3.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)