Silchar, Nov. 17: The Mizoram People’s Conference (MCP) has denied renomination to Lalhmingthanga, one of its veteran frontline leaders, for the December 2 elections to the Mizoram Assembly.

The move by the MCP, a constituent of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), has come as a major surprise to the over six lakh electorate in the state.

The UDA is pitted against the ruling Mizo National Party (MNF) and the Congress.

Lalhmingthanga, 62, has won the Assembly elections six times and is at present the senior working president of the MCP.

Talking over phone today, the former deputy chief minister scotched rumours that he was patronising a breakaway group of the MCP.

A dissident group last week floated a new political formation, christened Reformed Mizoram People’s Conference Party (RMPCP), under the leadership of maverick political activist J.V. Hluna, who won the prestigious Aizawl West II seat as an MCP candidate in the 1993 Assembly elections.

Lalhmingthanga, a school teacher-turned-political leader, made it clear that he would continue to be a member of his party but would not take part in the electioneering “in an avid way”.

He, however, hinted that he was a victim of simmering factional squabbles.

The MCP, led by Brig. (retd) T. Sailo, a two-time former chief minister of the state, has entered into a pre-poll alliance with the Zoram National Party (ZNP) to form the UDA.

The grapevine has it that ZNP chief Lalduhawma is opposing the nomination of Lalhmingthanga.

An MCP veteran said: “Lalhmingthanga has to pay the price for appeasing the ZNP.”

Lalduhawma, a former IPS officer who served as a special security officer in the Prime Minister’s secretariat in New Delhi in the late Seventies, lost to Lalhmingthanga in his first electoral battle in 1984 from Lunglei in south Mizoram.

Lalduhawma was not available for comment.

According to Lalhmingthanga, the anti-incumbency factor would propel the Congress to bounce back to power, though it would be not in a position to form the government on its own.

He said the Congress would be followed by the MNF which has been ruling the state for 10 years.

His party would finish a “poor third”, Lalhmingthanga said.