Newmai News Network
Imphal: Delhi Meitei Coordinating Committee (DMCC) has written to the Chief Election Commissioner to defer the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in strife-torn Manipur.
It also sought the attention of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Manipur and the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manipur on the matter in letters written to them separately on April 1.
The polling for the two Parliamentary seats from Manipur will be held on April 19 and 26.
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While seeking the deferment of the elections, DMCC stated that the ongoing ethnic mayhem in Manipur starting from May 3 last onwards, still continuing, for nearly 11-months to this day, have caused immense physical, psychological, economic and political damages to various sections of the people of Manipur.
According to official records, between May 3 till date, the clash has cost 221 lives. Among these 101 were Meeteis, 114 were Kukis and six others, it pointed out.
“Numerous persons have been injured, many persons from both community have been missing, thousands of houses, Meitei temples and churches either burnt or destroyed, and nearly seventy-thousand persons from both the communities becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs) and sheltered in temporary 319 relief camps.”
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“The economy has been the worst affected. Many people have lost jobs. Thousands of homes and properties have been destroyed beyond recovery thereby thousands of people have been subjected to abject poverty,” it also said.
DMCC then said prices of consumer goods skyrocketed. Tourism and hotels have been shut down. As many as 159 villages have been affected. A total of 5127.08 hectares of paddy field belonging to Meitei could not be cultivated due to constant armed attack by Kuki militants.
Meanwhile, many sections of the people announced to boycott the ensuing elections besides condemnations by several bodies.
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Since the state has completely failed to protect life, liberties, properties, people themselves were compelled to protect themselves.
DMCC further pointed out the incidents of looting of over 5000 arms and numerous ammunitions from the armories and police station located at various places of both the hills and in the valley and stated that of late approximately 1500 arms and ammunitions has been recovered by state security forces.
This showed that approximately 3500 arms and huge ammunition remained at large with people for self-defense as reported in the media, DMCC added.
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“The state is still not able to give guarantees to the people that these arms and ammunition will not be used during the election time, which may affect the free and fair conduct of Lok Sabha election,” it further added.
In view of these facts and circumstances “we felt that, it is not the right time to conduct 18th Lok Sabha Election at this juncture in Manipur state, due to the prevailing ongoing ethnic unrest and problem of rule of law and abnormal situation in the state of Manipur.”
Thus, it is necessary to reschedule the same on a later appropriate date, DMCC stated.
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