'Marvellous' Mizoram: PM Modi reaches out to voters

As campaigning for elections in Mizoram drew to a close on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the electorate with the promise of fulfilling their dream of making it a "marvellous" state. Modi highlighted the development work undertaken in the northeast since the NDA came to power at the Centre in 2014.

In the video message, Modi delivered his short ten-minute speech partly in Hindi and English, underlining that the distance- both physical and mental- between the Centre and the northeast has been narrowed significantly in the last few years. He insisted that the BJP is committed to the welfare of the people of Mizoram. This was his first appeal to the voters of Mizoram, where PM Modi did not campaign for the elections. He had cancelled a scheduled election rally in Mamit district on October 30, leading to speculations that he had done so as BJP's opponents had threatened to boycott him in protest against the turmoil in neighbouring Manipur and alleged failure of the Centre to control the situation. The party had then announced that home minister Amit Shah will fill in for him but that also did not happen.