Mizoram: Asish Kundra to Replace S B Shashank as Chief Electoral Officer

Guwahati: In a recent administrative move in the poll bound state of Mizoram, Ashish Kundra to replace S B Shashank as the new chief electoral officer (CEO) of the state.

Kundra, a 1996 batch officer, was posted as the Commissioner (General Administration Department), Higher and Technical Education in Mizoram. He was appointed after the poll panel asked the state government to forward names after it decided to find an alternative to Shashan

The decision was announced on Thursday days before the state goes to poll on November 28, following the widespread protest by the Mizoram NGO Coordination Committee, an umbrella organization of non-government organisations and civil society groups to remove Shashank

The protesters had asked Shashank to quit by November 5 and leave the state after the principal secretary (home), Lalninmawia Chuaungo, was removed following the chief electoral officer’s complaint against him

The protest took toll in the otherwise peaceful state of Mizoram, after Shashank had reportedly sought deployment of additional central armed police forces (CAPFs) in the north-eastern state and complained to the EC that the state's former principal secretary, Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, was interfering in the with the revision of electoral rolls of Bru refugees from Mizoram, who have been living in relief camps in Tripura since ethnic violence drove them away in 1997. Most Mizos, including the state government, are opposed to the Election Commission’s proposal for allowing Brus to vote at their camps and want them to return to Mizoram for that.

The protests had forced the Election Commission (EC) to send a senior official for talks with the apex body leading the stir while accepting the “broad contours” of its resolution on the CEO and Bru refugees submitted to a poll panel delegation.

On Tuesday, after thousands of people gathered outside Shashank’s office in Aizawl to seek his removal ahead of the November 28 assembly polls, an EC team comprising Jharkhand Chief Election Officer Lalbiakthanga Khiangte, EC director Nikhil Kumar and EC secretary S.B. Joshi held talks with the Mizoram NGO Coordination Committee,

Following the talks, the Coordination Committee on Wednesday submitted a resolution, seeking the poll panel to stand by its April 2014 commitment that in any future parliamentary or assembly elections in Mizoram, the Bru refugees living in camps in neighbouring Tripura could only vote within the state. It also reiterated the demand that Shashank be removed from his post and the state.

Shashank left Mizoram Wednesday after being summoned by the chief election commissioner in Delhi, which resulted in the withdrawal of the agitation

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