Kuki groups reiterate demand for UT status, seek delimitation exercise in Manipur
New Delhi: The Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and United People’s Front (UPF), the two Kuki groups have reiterated their demand for a separate Union Territory (UT) status for hill areas where the Kuki community is in a majority.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, representatives of the two umbrella groups questioned the authorities’ decision to defer population census in Manipur, calling it unconstitutional and demanded that a delimitation exercise on the basis of 2011 census should be conducted.
KNO leader Seilen Haokip and UPF leader Aaron Kipgen said that the Meitei community’s demand for holding the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to remove ‘illegal immigrants’ from Manipur, was a politically driven demand aimed at targeting the Kuki community.
“The state government does not want a population census, it wants a political census. However, our demand is that first delimitation should be conducted, which was last held in 1976 in Manipur. How can the census be deferred only for Manipur,” Kipgen asked.
“The demand for holding the NRC is like putting the cart before the horse and it is a politically motivated demand. The root of the problem is delimitation, which has not been held since 1976 and it is a demand which has been raised since 2015. It should be held as per the 2011 Census. Seeking the NRC is a bogey, it’s a non-issue,” WL Hangshing, general secretary of the Kuki People’s Alliance, said.
On the demand for a UT status with its own legislature, they said that it was the only viable Constitutional and political settlement possible after the post-2023 scenario, since it was difficult to return to the pre-2023 arrangement.
The organisations described the ethnic violence that began on May 3, 2023, as “state-sponsored ethnic cleansing” of Kuki-Zo people, an allegation rejected by Meitei organisations and the state authorities.
