AIZAWL — Ruling Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) candidate Richard Vanlalhmangaiha won the lone Mizoram Lok Sabha seat defeating Opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) candidate K Vanlalvena by an unassailable margin of 68,288 votes.
The ZPM, which for the first time got a parliamentary seat, wrested the Lok Sabha seat from the Opposition MNF.
Vanlalhmangaiha, an entrepreneur, managed 2,08,552 votes while his MNF opponent K Vanlalvena, a sitting Rajya Sabha member, got 1,40,264 votes.
Altogether six candidates including the Congress' Lalbiakzam, former state Home Secretary and lone woman candidate Rita Malsawmi of Mizoram People’s Conference, contested in the solitary parliamentary seat in the mountainous state.
The ZPM, which was constituted in 2018, came to power in last year's November 7 Assembly polls, crushing the MNF.
Though his party is a new player in the parliamentary elections, Chief Minister and ZPM President Lalduhoma was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984 on a Congress ticket but later quit the party and was disqualified under the anti-defection law in 1988.
Though the MNF is a constituent of the NDA’s northeast chapter, the Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) led by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Lalduhoma, already announced that his party would maintain equidistance from the BJP-led NDA and the Congress-led INDIA bloc.