ST demand genuine, legitimate: Col H Sarat
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, April 07 2024:
Independent candidate for Inner Manipur parliamentary constituency for the 18th Lok Sabha election, Col (retired) Haorungbam Sarat has said that his first task, if elected in the upcoming election, will be inclusion of Meetei/Meitei in the ST list of Indian Constitution so that the community gets constitutional safeguard.
Col (retired) Sarat met representatives of Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee Manipur (STDCM), which is launching a poster campaign since April 3 to make ST demand election issue.
As part of the campaign, STDCM representatives are meeting candidates of the upcoming election one-by-one and accordingly interacted with Col (retired) Sarat at his Wangkhei residence on Sunday.
During the interaction, Col (retired) Sarat said Meetei/Meitei community could have joined the ST list in 1955 but the visionless elders of the time wasted the opportunity, a big loss for the community.
Had the Meetei/Meitei community joined the ST list during the time, more than 1000 Meetei/ Meitei students would have cracked UPSC civil services examination by now, he said.
While asserting that it is birth-right of the Meetei/ Meitei to be recognised as ST, he declared unstinted support to the demand as it is genuine and legitimate.