Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 28:
MSCP MP Th Chaoba today urged the Centre to bring eight Assembly constituencies in Outer Manipur constituencies, which do not have the right to contest elections under Inner Manipur Parliamentary constituency.
Raising the issue in Lok Sabha the MP informed the House that voters of eight Assembly constituencies in Outer (reserved for ST) are allowed to cast votes, but not allowed to contest the elections as they are not Scheduled Tribes.
Chaoba said this "peculiar situation" has violated the fundamental rights of the people of the eight constituencies.
"This fact also violates the De-limitation Act 1972 particularly the provisions in sub-sections (a) and (d) of Section 9 of the relevant Act." Stating that this is injustice Chaoba expressed the fear that the voters, who are not able to exercise their fundamental right for the past 50 years, will remain in the same position for the next 25 years as the Parliament has frozen delimitation till 2026.The best way to protect the fundamental rights of the lakhs of voters is to add them to the 32 general Assembly constituencies in Inner Parliamentary constituency which will bring the total voters to approximately 12 lakhs of the total 40 Assembly constituencies, he pleaded.
The MP further said the remaining 20 reserved Assembly constituencies of the Outer still would continue to have a reasonable number of voters as compared to the other reserved Parliamentary constituencies in the North East and the country.