All the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs from strife-hit Manipur have requested the Election Commission of India to make voting arrangements for displaced community members living outside the state in the upcoming general elections.

The appeal was made in a joint petition to the chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday who had on March 16 said arrangements have been made for internally displaced persons (IDPs) to vote from their respective relief camps.

On March 19, Manipur’s chief electoral officer Pradeep Kumar Jha said the IDPs living outside the state can vote only from Manipur.

In its petition, the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar MLAs, seven of whom are from the ruling BJP, have drawn attention to the “plight of over 50,000 of our displaced people scattered in different parts of the country”.

Asserting the IDPs are legitimate electorates, the MLAs said since the solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict “remains elusive and with the situation still volatile, none of our displaced people are in a position to return to the Imphal valley and their villages”.

They have been compelled to take shelter in different parts of the country, including Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Delhi and several other cities, they added.

While flagging the arrangements made by the poll panel to “enable the displaced people currently lodged at relief camps in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi to cast their votes”, the Kuki-Zo-Hmar MLAs said if similar arrangements are not made for the IDPs living outside Manipur, “many of our genuine voters will be deprived of their constitutional rights to exercise their franchise as provided under the constitution”.

Requesting the ECI to “evolve ways and means” to enable the unfortunate and eligible victims of the ethnic violence to exercise their franchise in the true spirit of democracy, the MLAs suggested three steps to ensure voting for the IDPs living outside.

These included ECI to “pass” directions to the states and Union Territories to “identify” such displaced people immediately; to notify special polling stations wherever needed for the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar IDPs from Manipur and to allow the said displaced eligible voters of the community to “cast their votes using Aadhar cards and other valid documents, as many of them would have lost their voter identity cards”.

“This suffering of ours, which is among the few human tragedies witnessed by independent India, should not be allowed to turn into a classic case of denial of universal adult franchise guaranteed under Article 326 of the Indian constitution,” the MLAs contented.

About 12,000 IDPs had taken shelter in Mizoram out of the over 67,000 displaced in the conflict, which according to the MLAs, has “resulted so far in deaths of over 160 innocent civilians of our community, burning and destruction of over 360 churches, over 205 villages and over 7,000 houses in the Imphal valley and different hill districts”.