The opposition Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) general secretary on Sunday said Congress and ZPM found it necessary to have one candidate representing the whole of Mizoram to safeguard Christianity.
Accusing the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) of appointing a candidate to repay their debt to BJP, he said, even our MNF brethren know that what we are doing is right but since they are indebted to the BJP for the 2018 MLA election, they have to name a candidate just for the sake of it.
“The majority of the MNF leaders are disappointed that they can’t join us in sharing a common candidate. They are very eager to be done with the general elections so they can leave NEDA and start protecting their Christian religion and identity,” he said.
“They are not planning to win the election, if they were, the MNF party has many eligible candidates within the party whom they could have chosen,” he added.
Though the Congress and ZPM party attacked each other heavily in the recent election, now we have planned to have a common candidate and it might be hard for some people to understand as some of our policies, development priorities and guidelines are not at par. But despite our differences, we have no other country but India, and the religion we follow, Christianity is at stake as attempts are being made to influence the nation to be followers of Hinduism, he said.
“They are trying to push away the smaller tribes, and make the country a Hindu nation by introducing laws such as Uniform Civil Code and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill,” said the ZPM general secretary.
“BJP is attempting to make Mizoram rid of Christianity through various forms such as persecution, removal of secularism from the constitution and scrapping the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) through which Christian NGO’s received funds from foreign countries. In the past, attempts were made to win over people’s hearts but now that they know such is to no avail, so if we want to uphold our Christianity, and our Mizo nation, our only choice is to ensure that BJP does not come to power again,” he added.
The ZPM secretary accused the Modi-led government of various atrocities against Christians saying, persecution against Christians took place in 1200 incidents since 2014 and according to Christianity Today, India has 83 per cent persecution points. He also spoke of RSS saying they are a political wing of BJP and their main aim is to make India a Hindu nation.
Sapdanga appreciated the people’s candidate, Lalnghinglova Hmar saying he is a righteous man who does not indulge in any form of substance abuse and a studious pupil. After entering the field of media, he saw how the youth were suffering under the influence of drugs and decided that the best tool to fight against it would be sports. In a short time, under Tetea Hmar, we experienced tremendous developments in the field of football in the State, with the names of Mizo youth coming up in various football clubs all over the country today, he said.
“With politics arising as a tool of religious discrimination, we decided to have one candidate for Mizoram who will fight for our religious rights and approached Tetea Hmar who has taken up the challenge,” he added.