Songpi: The Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex body of the Kuki tribes, has formally approached the Governor of Manipur and the Chief Electoral Officer with an urgent appeal to safeguard the voting rights of Internally Displaced Persons during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
In its memorandum submitted on Monday, the organisation said the SIR exercise, if conducted without special provisions for conflict victims, could lead to large-scale exclusion of genuine Kuki voters who were displaced by the ethnic violence that began on May 3, 2023.
Lost Documents, Lost Voice
According to the Kuki Inpi, more than 60,000 people, mostly from the Kuki community, continue to live in relief camps across Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, Tengnoupal, Chandel and in other states like Mizoram, Delhi and Meghalaya. When their villages were attacked and burnt, most families fled without any belongings.
Voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards, birth certificates, educational certificates and land records were either burnt with their houses or left behind in areas they can no longer access. Now, the same documents are being demanded for verification under SIR.
The organisation said this has created an impossible situation where genuine voters are being asked to produce papers that were destroyed due to no fault of their own.
Why Current SIR Process Fails IDPs
The Kuki Inpi highlighted three major practical problems:
First, the SIR mandates verification at the original place of residence and polling station. For displaced Kukis, returning to their original villages in Imphal valley or other areas is still not safe due to complete territorial separation.
Second, the financial burden is huge. Obtaining a replacement birth certificate costs Rs 300 to Rs 600 per person. For a family of five, this goes up to Rs 3,000, which is unaffordable for families living on relief for two years.
Third, administrative delays. Government offices handling birth and domicile certificates are overcrowded with thousands of similar applications, causing weeks of delay. Many old records were also destroyed during the conflict and cannot be retrieved quickly.
The present circumstances risk excluding a significant number of genuine and eligible voters from the electoral roll through circumstances beyond their control, the memorandum stated.
Four Key Demands Placed
To ensure no eligible voter is left out, the Kuki Inpi has demanded:
- Extension of SIR Deadline: The deadline for Manipur should be extended by a reasonable period given the exceptional conflict situation.
- Dedicated Verification for IDPs: Special verification teams and facilitation centres should be set up inside all IDP relief camps and in cities with large displaced populations.
- Alternative Verification: Where original documents were lost or burnt, authorities should accept alternative proofs such as village chief certificates, church records, relief camp cards endorsed by District Administration, or peer verification.
- Free and Fast Document Re-issue: A free, simplified and fast-track single-window mechanism should be launched to re-issue lost identity and civil documents to all displaced persons.
The organisation also demanded a clear safeguard that no voter should be deleted from the electoral roll solely because they could not produce documents that were lost due to conflict and displacement.
Right to Vote Must Be Protected
No citizen should lose their right to vote simply because conflict and displacement deprived them of the documents needed to prove their identity and eligibility, the Kuki Inpi asserted.
The apex body said that an inclusive electoral roll is the foundation of democracy and the SIR should aim to include, not exclude, victims of conflict.
It warned that unless immediate corrective steps are taken, the revision exercise will disproportionately affect IDPs and will be seen as an administrative disenfranchisement of a community that has already suffered displacement.
The office of the CEO, Manipur has not yet issued any special guideline for IDP voters or responded to the memorandum till the time of filing this report.
The Kuki Inpi said it expects immediate intervention from the Governor to protect the constitutional rights of all displaced eligible voters in Manipur.
