SHIMLA: The All India Tribe and Minorities Front has decided to boycott the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where it had earlier planned to field 155 candidates.
Announcing this at a press conference here Oct. 14, the front president, M.S Neg, said the decision was taken at the central executive committee meeting at Agra recently.
Giving reasons for the boycott, he said no presidential ordinance had so far been promulgated to exclude nontribal and nonresident voters from the electoral polls of the constituencies reserved for, the Scheduled Tribes in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, as demanded by the front in a memorandum to the President, Dr.S.D.Sharma, and the Chief Election Commissioner, T.N.Seshan on Sept.16.
Negi said the electoral rolls of the tribal constituencies on these States contain numerous fictitious names. A large number of foreigners have got their names entered on the list of a tribal electoral polis. For instance Tibetan, Zanskrpas of Ladakh and Nepas in Himachal Pradesh and Bangladeshis and Nepalis in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had managed to get registered as voters. “The defective and erroneous electoral rolls have not been rectified,” he said.
Negi said a tour of the four states by the campaign committee of the Front had confirmed the presence of “fictious” voters. He said the nontribal and nonresident voters were mostly “exploitative” money lenders who could influence free and fair elections,
He said in some tribal constituencies in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan nontribal voters out number tribal voters, thus rendering provisions of the Article 330 of the Constitution meaningless.
Negi charged the government with “blatant negligence” of tribal, treating them as mere vote banks, and called upon all enlightened tribal and other political parties and organizations engaged in the tribal affairs to boycott the elections. Negi said’ under the circumstances, the Front had decided to launch an agitation to seek amendment of hte relevant provision of Representation of People’s Act 1950 and 1951 and Article 326 of the Constitution barring nontribal and nonresidents to be registered voters in all the 353 reserved assembly constituencies.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 22, 1993
