Syiem manipulates poll

SHILLONG, OCT 15: Smit village residents on Thursday sought the intervention of the KHADC into the alleged interference and manipulation of the sordar’s election by the Syiem of Hima Khyriem.

“We have submitted a petition to the KHADC executive member (EM) in-charge Elaka, requesting his immediate intervention to initiate a fresh election of the sordar of Smit village,” former secretary of Smit village, Marbatstar Kharbyngar told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

He said, “The decision was taken after majority of the residents expressed resentment over the manner in which the election was conducted.”

Kharbyngar was also one among the four candidates contesting for the election of the sordar post, held on May 16 earlier this year. Kynsai Manik Syiem, who is  the immediate cousin of the Syiem of Hima Khyriem Dr Balajied Syiem, was elected as the new sordar.

Alleging that the election was called without constituting an election committee of the dorbar, Kharbyngar said, “The Syiem, who had chaired the Dorbar meeting on April 25, failed to listen to the people who attended the meeting but went ahead declaring the decision to conduct the election.”

He claimed that majority of the people had raised their hands to support his candidature while only one person stood up to support the candidature of Manik.

“Since, the Syiem of Hima Khyriem, who seems to be in favour of Manik as the new sordar, immediately declare the dorbar meeting over with a decision that an election of the sordar will be held on May 9,” Kharbyngar alleged.

Stating that this was the first time that a Syiem took upon himself the responsibility to chair a meeting of a dorbar shnong, he said, “Interestingly, on the election day, the Syiem was seen standing in front of gate to welcome the voters and was requesting them to vote for Manik.”

According to him, the election was conducted through secret ballot, but surprisingly the slip provided to the people was printed with only one name – ‘Sordar’ in four places instead of names of the candidates.

“Due to this, we want the district council to call for a fresh election, to ensure the new sordar will be someone which the people elected in a fair manner,” he said.

He also alleged that the report which was presented in the dorbar meeting, which was convened after a gap of five years, was not accepted by the people. “This was due to the fact that the people had argued that the report does not match with the activities, which were conducted in the past five years,” he said.

Stating as per the report presented by general secretary of the dorbar, only once, the dorbar had conducted a fete with Rs 3 lakh as the fund that was raised, and he added, “Contrary to this, the people had recalled that there were at least 10 such fetes being conducted in the past three years from 2012 to 2014.”

On this, Kharbyngar said that an RTI has already been filed with the deputy commissioner of East Khasi Hills district, because his office is the authority to issue permission for holding such fetes in the village.- By Our Reporter