History Headline: When Mizoram nearly broke away

In the din and many debates over the results, not many will devote much time to the fifth verdict — from Mizoram.

In 1986, Laldenga signed a historic accord with Delhi, becoming the new state’s first CM. He died four years later. (Express Archives)

Two days from now, the spotlight will be on the verdicts from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, teasers of the mood of the nation as battle lines are firmed in the countdown to 2019. In the din and many debates over the results, not many will devote much time to the fifth verdict — from Mizoram.

Yet this also-ran frontier state, its history replete with inflection points, has been a shining example of Indian democracy ever since it emerged from the shadows of jungle warfare and two decades of insurgency. For more than 30 years now, Mizoram has been an island of peace in a region dismissed derisively as the Northeast.

The Blue Mountain state has come a long way from the time it nearly broke away from the Union. And two men in the fray these elections, Sachin Pilot who leads the Congress in Rajasthan and John V Hluna the BJP in Mizoram, though separated by a generation and ideology, share a link to that past.