Mizoram: Lalnunmawia Chuaungo appointed state’s new CIC

Lalnunmawia Chuaungo, the current Mizoram chief secretary who will retire voluntarily in October end, has been appointed as the new Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of the state.

The notification appointing Chuaungo as the new Chief Information Officer was issued by the General Administration department on October 20, an official statement said on Tuesday.

Chuaungo, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of the 1987 batch, working in joint AGMUT cadre, assumed the chief secretary (CS) office in February 2019 on inter-cadre deputation.

Earlier before this, he served as principal secretary of the Mizoram home department.

Chuango had recently sought voluntary retirement from his post, which the Gujarat government approved and allowed him to retire voluntarily on October 31.

Highly-placed sources said that the present additional chief secretary to the chief minister JC Ramthanga will replace Chuaungo as the state CS.

Chuaungo was in the news before the state assembly polls in 2018 when he was removed by the Election Commission following a complaint filed by the then state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) SB Shashank that the former had interfered in the poll process. He was then the principal secretary of the Mizoram home department.

SB Shashank had reportedly sought the deployment of additional central armed police forces which Chuaungo had allegedly objected to.

The former CEO had also accused Chuaungo of objecting to the use of identification slips of Bru voters for any other purpose except repatriation. The removal of Chuaungo and the alleged ‘pro-Bru’ stance by Shashank had irked the state government, political parties and civil societies.

On November 6 and 7, 2018 a state-wide protest was staged by the NGO Coordination Committee, a conglomerate of major civil societies and student organisations, which compelled the ECI to remove Shashank. When Chuaungo returned to the state to assume CS office in February 2019, he was accorded a hero welcome.