Veteran Congress leader Lalthanhawla will take oath as the new chief minister of Mizoram on Thursday after leading the party to a landslide victory against the rival Mizo National Front (MNF) in the Assembly elections.
A Congress party source informed that, all the 32 newly elected Congress legislators in the tiny Northeastern hill state unanimously elected Lalthanhawla as their leader in a meeting held at the Congress Bhawan in Aizawl in presence of three observers from All India Congress Committee (AICC), including Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizer, Bijoy Krishna Handique and Ved Prakash.
The CLP leader then met the Governor later in the day to stake claim to form the next government in the state. The swearing-in of the new Mizoram chief minister is scheduled to be held tomorrow afternoon at the Raj Bhawan.
It will be Lalthanhawla's fourth tenure as the chief minister of the hill state. He first became the chief minister in 1984, but quit office in 1986 after the Mizo Peace Accord had been signed between the then under ground Mizo National Front (MNF) led by Laldenga and the Centre headed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
He quit to pave way for the MNF leader Laldenga to become the Chief Minister. Lalthanhawla again became the chief minister in 1989 heading a Congress government. He was also the Chief Minister of a Congress-led coalition government during 1993-1998.
