ATSUM's 24 hrs bandh comes into force
Demand to conduct elections to ADCs
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 12 2021:
The proposed 24 hours bandh over the demand for elections to Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) will take effect from midnight today, said ATSUM (All Tribal Students' Union).
In a statement, ATSUM said the representatives of the union met Chief Minister N Biren Singh at his Bungalow yesterday, but the talk failed to bring a concrete solution.
As such, the proposed 24 hours bandh from midnight of March 12 will go ahead.
It may be noted that ATSUM had called the bandh in hill districts denouncing Government's failure to issue notification for holding elections to the six existing Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) of Churachandpur, Sadar Hills, Senapati, Chandel, Tamenglong and Ukhrul.
Notably, the tenure of the offices of the Members of the six ADCs were extended by six months after the expiry of their normal tenure in June last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic and their term had again expired on November 30 .
Since then, the offices of the Members of the ADCs have been lying vacant with no elections till date.
ATSUM, which has been demanding elections of the ADCs at the earliest, had served March 11 as the deadline to the Government to issue the election notification.
The union had cautioned that it would call a 24 hour bandh from March 12 midnight and ban all National and State developmental projects in all hill districts.
It had also warned that the 24 hours bandh will be followed by an indefinite economic blockade.
Many hill based organisations and student bodies had also endorsed ATSUM's proposed bandh.
Meanwhile, this is not the only issue facing the Government at present regarding the Autonomous District Council.
The Demand Committee on Creation of Autonomous District Councils, on the other hand, has been urging the State Government not to conduct the ADC elections before creating ADCs for Pherzawl, Kamjong, Noney and Tengnoupal.
It had asserted that the ADCs for the four new districts should be created first and the elections should be held simultaneously for all.
It had also appealed ATSUM not to call the bandh and push for the elections of the six ADCs only.
The committee had opined that ATSUM should instead support the demand to create the new ADCs first and then push for simultaneous elections of all the councils.
It may be recalled that the four new districts of Pherzawl, Kamjong, Noney and Tengnoupal were among the seven new districts created by way of bifurcation from existing districts in 2016 by the then Congress Government.
The newly-created districts are Tengnoupal, bifurcated from Channel district; Kamjong-bifurcated from Ukhrul; Noney from Tamenglong; Pherzawl from Churachandpur; Kangpokpi from Senapati and Jiribam from Imphal East district.