SHILLONG, OCT 14: Garo hills based ngos, who are against the inclusion of non-tribal in the GHADC elections, demanded that the state government provide the poll percentage of the Garo voters separately.
“The state government is trying to downplay the collective resentment expressed by the Garo community against the inclusion of non-tribal in the GHADC polls by releasing only the generalized poll percentage of the elections (even which we doubt to be accurate),” the leaders of the NGOs said in a statement on Wednesday.
They said, “We demand that the state government machineries declare the poll percentage of the Garo voters separately.”
The ngos also claimed that they are fully aware that the areas with mix communities have polled higher than the areas where Garos only resides.
“This is an effort by the state government to present the Garo community as a community which does not have a common consensus,” they alleged adding “The Garo community can learn from this episode that the government of Meghalaya is hell bent on generalizing the Garo community with other non-tribal communities.”
“One can easily imagine how much percent the votes of the people residing in the plain belt areas will sum up to,” the statement added.
Further the statement stated, “The fact that non-tribal have been included in the whole election process of the present GHADC polls, leaves us the ngos to dispute the whole election, and it is thus, that the conglomerate ngos will relentlessly object the GHADC in its current form, and will vehemently dedicate ourselves in rectifying the GHADC with provisions to empower only the tribal of Garo Hills.”
Reiterating that the call for the non-inclusion of non-tribal in GHADC is their right, the ngos said they shall further protest against the inclusion of non-tribal in the GHADC, through every possible means. The statement said, “We thank all our supporters for sticking with us through thick and thin, we assure all the Garos who boycotted the elections, that we the conglomerate NGOs will continue with our agenda of pursuing the non-inclusion of non-tribal in the GHADC.”
“We congratulate the people of the 4(four) polling stations that recorded 0 (zero) turnout of voters,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the ngos also condemned the move of the government for putting a clamped on the internet and said taking advantage of the clamp, candidates and their canvassers mislead the innocent citizens by spreading rumors that the ngos have called off the boycotting of the elections and also by lying to the people that their EPIC cards will expire if they don’t exercise their franchise in this particular election.
The ngos statement said, “We are equally upset that the election observers/returning officers failed to monitor the cash flow and also the distribution of alcohol to the people.” –By Our Reporter
The Garos should be awfully concern of the inclusion of the non- tribals in the voters list to the GHADC election.