Dimapur, July 31 (MExN): The Nagaland Congress (NC), a new political party floated in the State in June this year, has appreciated the Election Department for “detecting and deleting several lakhs of multiple and bogus voters” in the State. With much more left to do, the NC has also appealed to local self government units and concerned citizens of Nagaland to give “full cooperation” to the Department to bring about “tempered free, factual” Electoral Roll (E-roll) in the State. The NC, which will contest State elections in 2018, has reiterated the power of the people stating that “The fate of democracy lies in the hands of the electorates.”
A press statement from Vaprumu Demo, General Secretary and Media & Spokesperson of the NC, today stated that the party supports the “intensive revision” of E-roll in the State.
Election manipulation
“Election has become such an expensive thing for contesting candidates and easiest means for making fast money by the electorates,” stated the NC. This has led to the ‘intentional manipulation’ of the E-roll in Nagaland, it claimed.
The candidate ‘inflates’ the figure in his village/town “to enhance his vote bank beyond imagination” and the voters hold “multiple/bogus voters’ list to demand cash or kind from each contesting candidate.”
“It is an organized manipulation with full involvement of village council/municipal authority, enumerators, political parties and contesting candidates. The failure, rather routine attitude of Election Authority towards visibly unrealistic E-Roll without enforcing stringent measure at appropriate time has really hampered democratic election process for many years in the past,” observed the NC reiterating the need for a “factual” E-roll.
Acknowledging that a “positive step” towards this direction has been undertaken by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the NC drew attention to the efforts of the Election Department in Nagaland headed by its CEO, Sanjay Kumar, IAS, to “rectify the enormous anomalies” in E-roll.
Areas of concern
“However, it may be noted with seriousness that E-Roll conducted on the basis of existing census is still questionable for reasons specified above,” noted the NC, while stating that the Census 2001 was “challenged and rejected” by State Government for “extreme abnormality” and the “distortion of population reality” with the ‘intent’ to “inflate” the E-roll. “Census 2011 recorded a reverse order of population in most districts in the State and this fact endorses our contention that E-Roll must be likewise reviewed drastically to bring it down to reality,” the new political party maintained.
It also asked the Election Authority to consider instances where E-roll is “higher or equivalent or above the 60:40 ration of E-Roll and Census figures.” Giving an instance, the Nagaland Congress stated, “a rich man opened a farm in the outskirt of a Village somewhere in Nagaland where two persons were posted to man the farm and against this farm a ghost population of 400 odd was registered in the Census.”
“Similarly, most of the villages have unrealistic census figures as there used to be competition between the villages to have the bigger population size than the other. With the kind of the spirit of competition, the national ceiling prescribed for decadal growth at 22 % is never adhered to. Besides, multiple entries in census enumeration is rampant,” alleged the NC, stressing that these ‘manipulations’ are often done at the “behest of mostly the rich and the powerful.”
Another area of “grave concern,” observed the NC, is the presence of a “floating population” in Nagaland. “There is cross border registration as citizens as well as voters in the State of Nagaland. These people hold dual citizenship in two or more states. During elections this category of people used to participate in more than one State as voters,” the NC informed. This practice, it stated, is “illegal” and creates “nuisance” for “law abiding citizens.”
