The United Mongolian/Mongoloid Party (from North East)
By Ranjit Luwang *
The North East has never been an important political player in the past 60 years of the Nation. The indian politics have been dominated by the heavyweights from the hindi belt viz. UP, Bihar, Jarkhand & Madhya Pradesh.
This is because of the bulk of the MPs' that these states send to the centre. Before the arrival of the coalition era which came about because of Mandal, Dalit rights and regionalism, the PM used to be from the state of UP which send the maximum number of MP. It still sends the maximum number i.e 80 MPs even after Uttaranchal is carved out of it.
Now that tradition of PM from UP wants to be revived by the Dalit leader Mayawati. Mayawati has taken advantage of vote bank viz the dalits in UP to the maximum advantage. She has already become the CM of UP courtesy the Dalit voteBanks.
Now to realize her dream of becoming the PM of the nations she is slowly expanding her influences all over India where ever Dalits are in large number. This is already the case in Maharashtra, Delhi, Bihar, Rajasthan etc.
Indian parliament has a total number of 552 Members of parliament in Lok Sabha which is made up by election of upto 530 members to represent the States, upto 20 members to represent the Union Territories and not more than 2 members of the Anglo-Indian Community to be nominated by the Hon'ble President, if, in his opinion, that community is not adequately represented in the House.
Traditionally the Monglian/Mongoloid NE has never been able to put up a confident image in the hindi belt dominated parliament unlike the Dravidian South and the Communist West Bengal.
This is because the South already had their Dravidian Movement around the time of Independence. Periyar was a dravidian nationalist who wanted an independent dravidian country. Some of the parties that come to exist courtesy the dravidian movement are DMK and AIDMK.
In this era of coalition in the Indian politics, regionalism has come to play a big part. The regional parties DMK, AIDMK, TDP, Trianamol Congress etc are important members of the two major groupings in the Indian polity. Even a small party with 8 MPs like MDMK of Ramadoss, formed an important part in the central government getting key portfolios.
Given this scenario, the Mongolian/Mongoloid NE political leaders who are motivated to develop the region seriously and carved out a common Mongolian/Mongoloid identity should look at the possibility of starting a political party who represents the indegeneous mongolian/mongoloid peoples of the NE Region and elsewhere like Ladakh, West Bengal and Uttaranchal.
NE Region has 8 states with a total of 25 elected MPs' for Lok Sabha. The seats are given as follows:
Arunachal : 2
Assam : 14
Manipur : 2
Meghlaya : 2
Mizoram : 1
Nagaland : 1
Sikkim : 1
Tripura : 2
Out of this, the Mongolian/Mongoloid majority areas are
Arunachal : 2
Manipur : 2
Meghlaya : 2
Mizoram : 1
Nagaland : 1
Sikkim : 1
In Assam:
Lakhimpur : 1
Dibrugarh : 1
Jorhat : 1
Karbi Anglong : 1
Kokrajhar : 1
and Mongolian has winnable votes in
Guwahati : 1
Mongoldoi : 1
So if the mongolian/Mongoloid solidarity could be established, The United Mongolian/Mongoloid Party (UMP) could easily win 16 MPs. These could be further propped up with seats from Mongolian/Mongoloid dominated areas of Darjeeling (Gorkhaland), Cooch Behar (Kamtapur), Ladakh and some parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal.
A strong mongolian/Mongoloid communities in the NE region can only be achieved by realizing our potential socially, economically and politically. The region badly need visionary leaders who can take us out of the present political problems of insurgency, illegal immigration, lack of development initiatives and rampant corruptions.
The NE leaders has never known the independence in policy and the confidence that is required in taking difficult decisions. I think its time now for us to work towards that empowerment.
Let's go for a United Mongolian/Mongoloid Party.
* Ranjit Luwang writes regularly to e-pao.net and contributes to The writer can be contacted at ranjitluwang(at)yahoo(dot)com
This article was webcasted at e-pao.net on 14th May 2009.
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