March 22, 2025: The Federation of Civil Society Organizations (FOCS) Manipur has stated that it is not an opportune time to conduct a delimitation exercise considering the current situation in Manipur, and the decision for execution needs to be reconsidered and thought through in depth, threadbare.
According to a press statement issued by Nerish Mangang, Secretary of Information and Public Relations, FOCS Manipur, the CSO said it will not be able to accept and agree to the delimitation exercise if it is not backed by the scientific data of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). It would be a great challenge to carry out delimitation exercises during this ethnic unrest based on population numbers. The FOCS statement comes after the Supreme Court of India issued an order to the central government on March 17 to carry out the pending delimitation process for Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.
FOCS opined that by ignoring the ground reality, the enumeration would not be able to be completed with accurate data, and the process is also relevant to the prevailing law and order situation. There is also high apprehension that executing the process in this situation might bring bigger misunderstandings among various communities, further worsening the unrest.
FOCS also highlighted that the state has witnessed a demographic imbalance due to the unregulated influx of many illegal immigrants in Churachandpur, Tengnoupal, Chandel, and Kamjong districts as a result of the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. The illegal immigrants are the main cause of the current 22-month-long unrest, having migrated to Manipur by taking advantage of the porous long border. There is also an instance where the Union Home Minister himself has stated this in Parliament.
It can be recalled that there are reports of the existence of 934 new villages in the state, inhabited by Kuki-Chin people, in areas that have yet to be recognized as protected and reserved forest areas, along with reports of an unnatural rise of 67,000 voters.
FOCS is not against the delimitation process, which is under the provision of the Indian Constitution due to the rise in population and aims to fix limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies or a province having a legislative body, the statement said. It added that carrying out the delimitation process without the NRC and its accurate data will only lead to the suppression of the indigenous population while providing advantages to other migrants and immigrants.
