Manipur tribal bodies urge people not to participate in autonomous bodies’ polls

Ten tribal organisations including the influential Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) on Sunday urged the people not to participate in the proposed elections to the Autonomous District Councils (ADC) in Manipur.

Manipur has six ADCs for the socio-economic development of the tribals, who constitute 40 per cent of Manipur’s around 3.2 million population with Nagas and Kuki-Zo are major tribal communities among the 34 tribes.

The ten tribal organisations said that a resolution passed on October 14 by the Hill Areas Committee (HAC), a body under the Manipur Legislative Assembly, following a threadbare discussion, unanimously resolved to “recommend to the government of Manipur to conduct the long pending ADC election as soon as possible.”

The committee also resolved that in order to run the administration of the ADCs, a committee consisting of 20 members for each ADC shall be constituted of whom 18 shall be elected from former ADC members/experts in local self-government/eminent persons/intellectuals and two government nominees of the district till the ADC election is conducted.

The ten tribal organisations in a joint statement said that the HAC is supposed to represent the interests of tribal people in Manipur and to create temporary committees for each of the ADC in the state until elections in these autonomous bodies.

The resolution of the HAC is unacceptable as Kuki-Zo MLAs were not involved in the decision-making process, the statement said.

“The HAC’s resolution also recommends elections for ADCs amidst the ethnic violence is contentious, deceptive, and highly undesirable.

After so many years of delay, why now, in the middle of a bloody conflict? The last ADC elections were held in 2016, and since then, no local body elections have been conducted by the Manipur government,” the tribal bodies said.

They claimed that the ADCs have been starved of funds and are facing great difficulty in performing their tasks. This shows the state government’s total disregard for the welfare of the hill people.

The proposed ADC elections are just a ruse to divert and break the momentum of the movement of the tribals for a separate administration from the Manipur government.

The statement said: “After so much death, destruction, and the vilification of our community by the state government, we will not be distracted by local body elections.

We advise the people not to participate in ADC elections until there is a settlement of our political demand.”

The opposition Congress also recently alleged that the BJP government in the state is “anti-tribal” for not holding ADC elections for the last four years.

State Congress President Keisham Meghachandra Singh said that the BJP government has deliberately chosen not to conduct ADC elections for the last 4 years.

The Congress leader also criticised the resolution adopted by the HAC and termed it as “unconstitutional, illegal and void of any source of law from the Constitution”.

He said that by not holding ADC elections for the last 4 years, the financial devolution, central grants-in-aid, central financing, MGNREGS, central schemes related to ADCs and the Finance Commission awards are being denied to the people of the hills in the state.

This had already affected and squeezed the State Annual Budget 2024-2025, Singh said.

The last election to ADCs was held in 2015 when the Congress government was in power in the state and the terms of six ADCs ended in 2020.