Meghalaya groups get minister's support

A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG, April 1: State Cabinet Minister and Pynursla legislator Prestone Tynsong today supported the pressure groups on the issue of involving the traditiol heads in verifying new voters.

“The Election Commission (EC) should include the traditiol heads while conducting enrolment drives since they can verify which individual is eligible,” Tynsong told reporters today.

Tynsong also said that traditiol heads should be involved when the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs)/Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) are engaged in enrolling those people who are yet to be included in the electoral rolls since these people can be in a better position to identify who is a local and who is not.   

Meanwhile, the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) today expressed its reservation over the claim of the East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner (DC), Sanjay Goyal that the hearing for verification of eligible voters at DC’s office on Thursday has been cancelled.

It may be mentioned that major pressure groups in the state-KSU, FKJGP and HNYF have threatened to disrupt the voters’ enrolment drive scheduled on Thursday. The DC has fixed this day as the date of hearing and verification of the applicants hailing from Lyngkhat under Pynursla constituency.

It may be mentioned that Goyal had maintained that there was no scheduled hearing in his office on Thursday.

However, the KSU Employment Cell chairman Lamboklang Marngar told reporters that an official from the DC’s office said that the hearing cannot be cancelled.

“We strongly suspect that the Deputy Commissioner is trying to mislead us since according to the Electoral Registering Officer (ERO) Ms. EB Suja, it impossible to cancel the public hearing since arrangement has already been made,” he said.

According to Marngar, on Tuesday he had persolly met the ERO at her chamber and she had made it clear that the hearing will be held as scheduled.

The pressure groups said that the state government had in 2012 agreed in principle that such enrolment drives should be conducted in the respective blocks or villages with the active participation of traditiol heads.

Further, the KSU Pynursla unit today alleged that the eight people who origilly hailed from Bangladesh are trying to get themselves enrolled in the electoral rolls of Lyngkhat village for the third time.

According to the KSU activists, during the hearing conducted in the village in 2012 and 2013, the application of these eight people were rejected since they failed to produce the necessary documents to proof they are genuine Indian citizens.

“In fact, there are many other Bangladeshis whose application was rejected during the hearing held in the village. But it is only these eight people who have come all the way to Shillong to get themselves enrolled,” Marngar said.