DIMAPUR, MAY 19 (MExN): The World Meetei Council Assam State Unit in association with Manipuri Basti Meira Paibi (MBMP), Manipuri Rajbari Students’ Union (MRSU), United Manipuri Association Assam (UMAA) and Achanba Lup (AL) on May 19 organized a Dharna to demand Scheduled Tribe status in Assam at Manipuri Rajbari, Guwahati.
It urged the Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh to send the two reports on for ST i.e. the latest socio-economic and ethnographic reports of Meetei to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India so that the process of inclusion of the Meetei in the ST list may be completed before the process of Delimitation of 2026.
A press release by the WMC Assam State Unit maintained that the Meetei community living in Assam has been demanding ST status to protect the identity of Meetei much earlier than the Manipur Meetei's demand for ST status. Taking the words of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, it claimed that their demand has being kept in abeyance by the Assam Government because the Meeteis of Manipur has not been given the ST status.
The fact of the matter is we can be included in the ST list only after the Meetei in Manipur become ST. This is the rule position, it stated while adding, “And it is only the Meetei who are going to be left behind to be perished in just a generation's time. And it is only the ST status that can protect us.”
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