TIPRA Motha will stage protests on Wednesday across the state for delaying the Village Committee elections by the State government and State Election Commission. They will be holding Protest Rally and Mass Deputation against the delay in Village Committee Elections at all the BDO Offices of the state. And shall also submit a Common Memorandum to all the respective BDOs, that shall be addressed to the Hon’ble Governor of Tripura. said TIPRA MOtha chairman Pradyot Kishore Debbarman.
TIPRA Motha which was pressing for early Village Committee polls is peeved at the way the publication of final Electoral rolls was kept in abeyance citing the Tripura High Court order. The High Court asked the concerned authorities to include all the eligible resettled Bru tribesmen in the Electoral roll before going to the polls. The State Election Commission could not enrol all the eligible rehabilitated Brus in the roll for various reasons and as it appeared that all of them could not be included in the roll within a short span of time for various reasons the Commission held up the publication of the final voters’ list. The election to the Village Committees were scheduled to be held in November. But in absence of the final voter list the elections had now become uncertain.
TIPRA Motha took strong exception to this. They alleged that the state government was dilly-dallying with the Village Committee elections in one pretext or the other though in the meantime some other polls had already been held.
To press for their demand for Village committee elections the TIPRA Motha would not hit the street and intensify the agitations.
The SEC in a press statement on Saturday (October 15) had said, “Since the electoral roll of Village Committees has been prepared by the State Election Commission based on the State Assembly Electoral Roll finally published by the Election Commission of India on 05.01.2022 with reference to 01.01.2022 as the qualifying date, the Rules do not permit for inclusion of names of any new voters including the Bru(Reang) migrants who have enrolled their names after 05.01.2022 and pending final publication of the integrated electoral roll by the Election Commission of India. As per Rules, the inclusion of their names in the electoral roll of Village Committees is only possible when the electoral roll of Village Committees Is prepared based on the electoral roll of State Assembly Constituencies to be finally published on 05.01.2023 by the Election Commission of India following the ongoing Special Summary Revision Programme”.
The SEC further said, “Therefore, it will be sensible to await publication of State Assembly Electoral Roll by the Election Commission of India through ongoing revision programme and thereafter to treat the finally published electoral roll of assembly constituencies as the base electoral roll for preparation of electoral roll for the election of Village Committees”.
In the meantime, adequate security measures were put in place in view of the TIPRA Motha agitation , especially in the TTAADC areas.
