Weed out infiltrators before delimitation voice grows louder
All-party meet on delimitation today
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, March 24 2025: Taking serious note of the recent Supreme Court directive to carry out delimitation exercise in Manipur within three months, a joint meeting of all political parties would be held on Tuesday at 2 pm at the office of NPP Manipur State Unit, Naoremthong.

The meeting would be participated by representatives of AAP, BSP, BJP, CPI-M, INC, NPP, CPI, JD-U, NPF, RPI-A, AIFB, AITC, NCP, SP, RSP, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and MPP.

NPP State Unit president Yumnam Joykumar, CPI Manipur State Secretary Leishangthem Thoiren and CPI-M Manipur State Secretary Ksh Shanta have already issued a meeting notice.

The notice also asked all the political parties to send three to four representatives each to the meeting.

A number of organisations, particularly the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) had demanded that a National Register of Citizens should precede any exercise on delimitation.

On Friday COCOMI convenor Khuraijam Athouba had said that though the delimitation exercise should take place the case is different in Manipur as there is an overwhelming issue of illegal immigrants and had pointed out that over 67,400 bogus voters were recently detected in Manipur alongside unnatural population growth of a particular community in the previous Census.

NRC must take center stage before any delimitation talks, he had demanded, stating that 55 organisations support the stand of COCOMI.

Athouba had also urged the Government to take necessary steps to detect and deport illegal immigrants who entered Manipur after 1950 .

Additionally, he requested that the Government categorize new settlers, native, and indigenous people with 1950 as the base year and ensure they receive their rightful privileges and protections.

The All Manipur United Clubs Organisation had also asserted that any delimitation should be based on genuine or correct census records otherwise it is irrational and illegitimate.

All delimitation processes should be based on correct/genuine records, data and documents so that the delimitation process does not create any misunderstanding among the communities, AMUCO had maintained.

Any delimitation exercise in Manipur may be initiated only after the faulty census data are rectified and correct census records are published after all illegal immigrants are identified through comprehensive implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) .

State unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had also strongly stated that carrying out delimitation before identifying the illegal immigrants would pose a serious threat to the security and integrity of Manipur and the country.

The order of the Supreme Court to carry out delimitation is welcome, but it should be done after the illegal immigrants are weeded out, the AAP had stated.

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