Mizoram Assembly Election 2023: Bucking Bipolarity and Regurgitating Ethnicity and Governance Keywords: Northeast India, Mizo National Front, Zoram People’s Movement;, Bharatiya Janata Party, Ethnic Politics. V. Bijukumar The recent Mizoram assembly election gave a clear verdict in favour of the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), a third political force in the state, against the conventional binary electoral politics centred on the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Congress. While the incumbent MNF government, in its last leg of the tenure, clinched on new wave of ethno-regionalism to beat the perceptible anti-incumbency, the Congress tried to regain its lost electoral space promising efficient, transparent and corruption-free governance. The BJP unleashed a high-voltage campaign, but its outreach mostly confined to smaller ethnic minorities like the Chakmas and Maras than the dominant Christian Mizo ethnic community. Despite all these, ZPM’s promise of good governance with the slogan of “vote for a change, give this new party a chance” won the mandate of the electorate, both in rural and urban areas of the state. However, fulfilling its promises would be a daunting task. Prof. V. Bijukumar is with Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 110067. [Email: vbijukumar2014@gmail.com] Journal of North East India Studies Vol. 14(1), Jan.-Jun. 2024, pp. 1-7. ISSN 2278-1455 / eISSN 2277-6869 © 2024 Association for North East India Studies http://www.jneis.com Introduction The verdict of the ninth Mizoram assembly election 2023 sets new trends in the state politics. It ended the bipolarity of electoral politics and shifted the mantle of political power swing either for the Congress or the Mizo National Front (MNF) since the formation of the state in 1987. In the high-voltage electoral campaign unleashed by the three-cornered contest of the ruling MNF, the opposition Congress and the newly emerged regional outfit Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), the second highest literate state in India witnessed around 80% of voter turnout in the polling held on 7 November 2023 to all the 40 assembly constituencies. The counting was postponed to one more day as the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee (MKHC), a conglomerate of major church leaders in the state, demanded deferring the counting day from 3 December (which is Sunday) to Monday, as Sunday is the day of worship and prayers. Commentary