Bigger earthquakes are generally preceded by small tremors, so unnoticeable that they barely register. Mizoram, a speck of a state in India’s Northeast, may have just felt the first jolts of what could be the big political earthquake by the end of this year. On September 17, the Congress expelled its Mizoram vice president R. Lalzirliana for alleged breach of party discipline. This came just days after Lalzirliana stepped down as home minister after he was issued a show-cause notice over speculations that he was set to joining a rival party, the nationalist Mizo National Front (MNF).
At first glance it would appear a minor affair of the Congress in Mizoram, one of the last few states that the grand old party has still managed to hold on to. But the rival party, it turns out, is a member of the North East Development Alliance (NEDA), a political alliance led by the BJP. Mizoram is the only state in the Northeast...
