AMUCO moots delimitation on rectified census
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, March 23 2025: Reflecting on the Supreme Court of India's judgement on March 18 for conduct of delimitation exercise in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Assam within three months, All Manipur United Clubs' Organisation (AMUCO) has called upon the public to take a firm stand that the delimitation, if any, in the state should be based on the rectified census report.

In a release, AMUCO secretary general Pratap Leishangthem opined that to avoid misunderstanding among the various communities settling in the state, all should agree on conduct of the delimitation exercise based only on the truth and not to post anything in connection with delimitation on social media, which will hurt the sentiments of any community.

Though delimitation exercise based on equal distribution of population is essential, AMUCO believes that the same should proceed in the state after rectifying the faulty census report and implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to identify illegal immigrants.

AMUCO further pointed out that as the Delimitation Commission of India is powerful independent body, whose decision or order cannot be challenged in court, it is imperative that the people join hands to raise objections against the delimitation before the process begins.

The Census Report of 2001 and 2011 for the state has various anomalies and bogus data with the 2011 data showing unprecedented population growth in some areas, which if taken to be true, mean women of such areas, have delivered babies three or four times in a year, Pratap reasoned, adding that such unnatural population growth is due to wrongful conduct of census work in some places and manipulation of records.

AMUCO proposed that the central government apprise the Supreme Court that delimitation cannot be conducted in Manipur and might lead to public protest, if the delimitation is done based on error-filled census and without implementing NRC .

If the delimitation exercise is carried out on the basis of the present census record, there is no chance that parliamentary and assembly constituencies would be demarcated centring on uniform distribution of population.

If this happens, people from constituencies having larger population in paper only, would have more political power, it cautioned.

AMUCO also opined that government officials could not carry out census work in the right earnest last time due to pressure from armed groups in some parts, while in some places false data was fed, which led to officials not visiting the villages but completing the process within the comfort of the office room.

AMUCO further maintained that if the delimitation process is carried out in the state before a proper census is done and NRC implemented then it will not be a true delimitation, but a devastating step to eliminate indigenous population and opening of yet another dark chapter for the state.

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