Zoramthanga, the Chief Minister of Mizoram has requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to replace the incumbent Chief Secretary Renu Sharma, as she is not familiar with the Mizo language and the local people generally do not understand Hindi, officials said here on Tuesday.
A Mizoram government official said that the Chief Minister before joining the new Chief Secretary on November 1 had written to Home Minister Shah stating that after the retirement of Chief Secretary Lalnunmawia Chuaugo, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer, incumbent Additional Chief Secretary J.C Ramthanga (a Manipur cadre IAS officer) should be the next Chief Secretary.
However, the Home Ministry posted Sharma, an AGMUT cadre 1988 batch IAS officer, as the new Chief Secretary of Mizoram. Sharma assumed charge on November 1.
The Mizoram Chief Minister in his letter to Home Minister Shah said that Mizo people, by and large, do not understand Hindi, and none of his Cabinet ministers understands Hindi, while some even have problems with the English language.
“In such a background, a Chief Secretary without the working knowledge of the Mizo language will never be an effective and efficient Chief Secretary. Due to this fact, the Government of India never posted a Chief Secretary who did not have a working knowledge of the Mizo language since the creation of the state,” the Chief Minister said.
“Whether it is the UPA government or the NDA government at the Centre, this has been a practice since the creation of Mizoram. It is a well-known fact that in other states of India, a Chief Secretary who does not have the basic working knowledge of the local language is not posted there at all,” he added.
Christian dominated Mizoram was previously part of Assam until 1972 when it was carved out as a Union Territory. After the signing of the Mizo Peace Accord, it became a full-fledged state in 1986. More than 94 percent of Mizoram’s 1.1 million population are tribals.
