Speaking at a joint platform organized by the Mizoram People's Forum at his bastion Serchhip, Lal Thanhawla said the opposition had resorted to such tactics "because they cannot find any evidence of corruption against me and this is all they have to stand on." Rooting out corruption was the Congress' main plank in 2008, where they won by a landslide to win 32 of 40 seats.
At the platform, the five-time Chief Minister came under attack from other candidates particularly the Mizoram Democratic Alliance's C Lalramzauva and independent Lalawmpuia Renthlei as he has been from various other opposition politicians over the past few months as they attempt to make it a poll plank, tapping into the Christian Mizos' religious sentiment as well as widespread fears of being swamped by larger ethnic populations, charging the Congress of playing "Indianization politics".
To this charge, Lal Thanhawla said, "God has sought us Mizos out with his spirit, and why should we who believe this fear being swamped? Will God not protect us, those he has found? He will not allow us to be swamped."
In a veiled attack on the CM, who has been under attack for sporting tilaks and taking part in pujas several times on visits outside, the MDA's Lalramzauva said in his speech at the joint platform, "Spiritual people have said these elections are not going to be fought between parties but between forces of good and evil, between believers and non-believers."
Renthlei, who is curiously contesting as an independent from the two seats Lal Thanhawla is contesting from (Serchhip and Hrangturzo), on his part asked in an impassioned speech filled with biblical allusions, "When the giant Goliath threatened the Israelites and the small boy David killed him, how did David do it? Where did he attack the giant?" To which someone from the crowd shouted, "On his forehead!"
Renthlei continued, "It is written, 'you cannot drink from the same cup as that of God and of demons'. I ask the MDA and the Zoram Nationalist Party to join me in this fight."
As the audience cheered and hooted as Renthlei took his seat immediately after, Lal Thanhawla stood up without waiting for a formal invite from the platform's chairman, as is the norm, and hit back at his opponents.
In his capacity as CM, he said, he spends time with and visits people from all kinds of cultures and religions, "sometime I am greeted by half-naked people, sometimes by people wearing exquisite clothes, sometimes by people who bang gongs and sometimes by those who fire guns into the air."
"I ask you, there are those who have paraded idols with ten hands to protest my sporting a tilak. Are they not trying to use the power of these idols themselves?" he countered, referring to an MNF-organised rally in Aizawl earlier this year to protest the CM's sporting of a tilak.