Shillong, Apr 27: Activists from different civil society groups under the banner of Confederation of Meghalaya Social Organisations (COMSO) staged a sit-in demonstration demanding separate electoral roll for GHADC elections on Saturday.
The sit-in held on the premises of Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) was participated by representatives of Association for Democracy and Empowerment (ADE), Garo Students’ Union (GSU), A’chik Youth Welfare Organisation (AYWO), Federation of A’chik Freedom (FAF), Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP), Tura Government College Students’ Union (TGCSU), and FKJGP-TGC Cell.
The demonstration is neither an act of dissent nor division, but an invocation of a long-overdue correction in the administrative machinery, the COMSO said in a release.
“The state electoral roll for council elections has persistently diluted the original intention of the Sixth Schedule,” it said, adding, “By reasserting the call for a separate electoral roll, the CSOs seek not exclusion, but protection of self-governance as enshrined in the Constitution.”
The COMSO urged the NPP-led executive committee (EC) of GHADC to rise above the “politics of delay and excuses” and to take immediate cognizance of the demands.
It also appealed to the governor union ministries – Tribal Affairs and Home Affairs – to take serious note of the “grassroots discontent emerging from Garo Hills”.
