Pol parties stand against delimitation

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Mar 25 : Political parties in Manipur excluding the BJP and Congress have taken a unanimous resolution to oppose delimitation exercise based on the 2001 Census in the State.
As announced, an all political party meeting was convened at the office of National People's Party (NPP) at Naoremthong today.
Two major parties BJP and Congress, however, skipped the meeting.
The meeting has agreed to ask the Supreme Court to put on hold its directive to conduct delimitation in Manipur within three months.
The meeting reportedly concluded that conducting the delimitation exercise in Manipur based on the 2001 Census would be inappropriate.
Another resolution passed during the meeting was to invite the political parties that didn't attend today's meeting to join the next one.
In this regard, a six member sub committee has been formed with CPI (M) State secretary Ksh Santa as convenor and NPP's Joykumar, CPI's N Singhajit, AAP's Th Biswanath, JD (U)'s O Nabakishore and NCP's S Joy as members to implement the resolutions.
Meanwhile, other than BJP and Congress, representatives of different recognised National political parties and State political parties viz NPF, AAP, BSP, CPI (M), CPI, JD(U), NPP, RPI (A), AITC, NCP, SP, RSP, Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (UT), and MPP attended the meeting which was held from around 2 pm to 4 pm.
Speaking to the media after the meeting,  NPP State unit president and former Deputy Chief Minister Y Joykumar said that conducting delimitation based on the 2001 Census in Manipur would be incorrect and spark protests.
The meeting agreed to oppose any move  to commence the delimitation exercise based on the 2001 Census, he said.
Demanding that the delimitation should only happen after the flawed 2001 Census report is corrected, he added that they will mount a pressure on the Centre to conduct the delimitation based on a new Census, which is scheduled for 2026 and ensure fair representation.
He also said that conducting a Census and delimitation exercise in Manipur amidst the current conflict situation would be extremely challenging, if not impossible.