- IND2480.0%
- INC620.0%
Independents dominate Mizoram's first election
What happened
In Mizoram's first-ever Legislative Assembly election, independent candidates — contesting without any party's backing — won nearly the entire house.
Independent candidates won 24 of the 30 seats on offer — a landslide by any measure.
Its nearest rival, the Indian National Congress, took just 6 seats.
That gave independents 80.0% of the house, well clear of the 16-seat majority mark.
What changed
This was Mizoram's first-ever Legislative Assembly election, contested by a wide field of candidates across the territory.
155 candidates stood across the territory's 30 constituencies.
Every one of the territory's 30 constituencies went to a contested vote — not a single seat was left uncontested that year.
Notable numbers
A few numbers from that first election stand out.
The closest race was in South Vanlaiphai, Mizoram, decided by a margin — how far ahead the winner finished, in votes, over whoever came second — of just 33 votes.
At the other end, Demagiri, Mizoram saw the widest margin of the election, with the winner ahead by 78.6% of the vote.
About 81.7% of registered voters turned out to cast a ballot in Ilungvel, Mizoram, the highest of any seat in the territory that year.
The most crowded contest was Chawngte, Mizoram, where 9 candidates stood for a single seat.
The backdrop
One of the territory's major political movements remained outlawed, absent from the ballot in this election.
The Mizo National Front launched an armed uprising for an independent Mizo state beginning 1 March 1966, including attacks on government posts in Aizawl; the Indian Air Force carried out airstrikes on the town, and the MNF was outlawed as an organization in 1967. The insurgency continued for two decades until the 1986 peace accord.