Aizawl: The executive committee of the ruling Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) on Tuesday unanimously endorsed a proposed amendment to the party constitution allowing the Mizoram CM to simultaneously hold an elected party post. The move could pave the way for the CM to become party president.According to a release issued by the ZPM, the committee decided to amend Article 21(1) of the party constitution, which bars ministers, including the chief minister, from serving as elected party office-bearers under its “one person, one post” principle.Under the proposed amendment, the chief minister would be exempt from the restriction. Other ministers would remain barred from simultaneously holding elected posts in the party.The decision followed an Aug 29 letter from nine party functionaries — three advisers, three general secretaries and three joint secretaries — urging the party president to remove the restriction on the CM and other ministers holding elected party posts.The signatories included state information and public relations minister B Lalchhanzova, who also chairs ZPM’s media and publicity department.At an Aug 26 meeting, ZPM executive committee authorised the Val Upa Council (VUC) to appoint the party’s next office-bearers without holding an organisational election. The VUC is the party’s advisory and disciplinary body of elders, modelled on traditional Mizo social institutions.The party has convened its general assembly, its highest decision-making body, in Aizawl on Sept 29.ZPM general secretary Eddy Zosangliana Colney said the VUC could announce the new office-bearers before the General Assembly, in which case they would assume office immediately. If the appointments are not made earlier, they will be announced at the assembly, he said.The ZPM was formed in 2017 as a coalition of several regional organisations, including the Zoram Nationalist Party and the Mizoram People’s Conference. It was registered as a political party by ECI in July 2019.The ZPM positioned itself as an alternative to the Congress and the Mizo National Front (MNF), which had dominated Mizoram politics since the state attained statehood in 1987. It did not win power in the 2018 assembly election, when the MNF formed the govt.ZPM won 27 seats in the 40-member assembly in the 2023 election and formed Mizoram’s first govt led by neither the Congress nor the MNF on Dec 8, 2023.
