Delimitation demand: NESFOD to stage protest in Delhi

North East Students’ Forum on Delimitation (NESFOD) will be holding a mass rally on August 12 in New Delhi as a mark of protest against delay in delimitation exercise in four NE states.
Terming the delay as injustice and discrimination meted out to the people of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, NESFOD said the rally for justice will held at Jantar Mantar at 11 a.m. on August 12. “Injustice and discrimination have been meted out to the people of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland by withholding Delimitation exercise for more than a decade now,” NESFOD stated.
According to reports, Supreme Court of India accepted a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Delimitation Demand Committee (DDCNE) for the North Eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Manipur.
DDCNE had filed a public interest litigation suit in the Supreme Court, after which the apex court sent notices to the Election Commission, Home Ministry, and Ministry of Law and Justice on July 25. In their petition, DDCNE had stated that selectively denying delimitation to these four North Eastern states, while being conducted in the rest of India, was in violation of the fundamental right under Article 14 of the Constitution.
A Presidential order from February 28, 2020, had asked for a delimitation exercise in these four states; subsequently, in a notification issued on March 6, 2020, the Centre constituted a Delimitation Commission for the purpose of delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. The Centre appointed retired Justice RP Desai as the chairperson, but the exercise was restricted only to J&K. DDCNE said it had submitted a memorandum in 2021 and 2022 to Prime Minister but did not receive any response.
“Therefore, the people of the four NE states have exhausted all available remedies as all our petitions and memorandums to the authorities concerned have fallen on deaf ears. Our only available hope is now to knock on the door of the court to deliver justice as all other government machineries have failed to do so,” it added.