STDCM storms Minister's residence to submit demand
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 18 2022: Volunteers of the Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee, Manipur (STDCM) stormed the residence of MAHUD Minister Yumnam Khemchand to submit a memorandum to send the recommendation sought by the Centre for enlistment of Meetei/Meitei in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list of the Constitution of India, today.

A press release issued by STDCM said that the decision to intensify its movement and pile the pressure on Ministers and MLAs of Manipur to send the needed recommendations to the Centre to grant ST tag to the ethnic group was taken during a public meeting held at Thangmeiband on October 13 .

Saying that they, however, failed to submit the memorandum as the Minister was unavailable and no other officials were there to accept it on his behalf, STDCM maintained that they waited for over an hour to meet the Minister or any of his close associates but came back empty handed.

STDCM storms Minister's residence to submit demand

"It is truly unfortunate that we couldn't meet the Minister nor his PRO or any of his officials," STDCM said and added that they will continue to storm the residences of other Ministers and MLAs.

Notably, STDCM has been urging the State Government to send the ethnographic and socio economic reports of the Meetei/Meitei to the Centre so as to initiate the process for enlisting the ethnic group in the identified ST list of the country.

The movement of STDCM which completed 10 years recently was put on hold for a period of time due to the Covid pandemic and Assembly election and it resumed on August 26 .

Since resuming its movement, the committee has been reaching out to different organisations and staging sit-in protests at different parts of the State, but the Government hasn't made any official statement on the matter, which the STDCM has repeatedly said it is a life and death situation of Meeteis/Meiteis whose meagre existence is being threatened by different factors such as demographic imbalance and influx of illegal immigrants.

The movement, nonetheless, is getting support from some organisations and the most notable one being the World Meetei Council (WMC) which openly declared its unconditional support to STDCM and has been launching its own movement to enlist Meetei/Meitei in the ST list.

Significantly the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs had in 2013 sent a written missive to the State Government to send the needed recommendations for inclusion of the Meeteis/Meiteis in the ST list.