THE Election Commission, in an urgent order, has stopped the process of intensive revision of electoral rolls in Tripura and asked the State Government to conduct a routine summary revision of the rolls. A senior official has said that the EC cited no reason for stopping the revision midway.

After a gap of ten years, the Commission, in the second week of November, had asked the Tripura election department to undertake intensive revision of electoral rolls with house-to-house enumeration of each eligible elector with reference to January one, 2004, as the qualifying date. After the preparatory work for the intensive revision, the month-long house-to-house enumeration began on December 27. The process was scheduled to continue till January 28. In all 2410 enumeretors and 1221 supervisors had been appointed to conduct the enumeration. The intensive revision of the rolls was last held in the State in 1994. According to the EC’s new order the draft voters’ list would be published on January 12 instead of earlier schedule of March 2, and after the disposal of claims and objections the final rolls would be published on February 28 instead of April 30,2004, the official stated.

Presently the total number of voters in Tripura is 19,31,064, including 9,31,149 women. Of them 83 per cent had been covered under the elector’s photo identity cards. Meanwhile a week-long statewide peace march began in Tripura with appeal to tribal guerillas to shun violence and join the national mainstream. Chief executive member of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) Hirendra Kumar Tripura said that about 5,000 tribal boys and girls participated in the peace march which started simultaneously from Dharmanagar in north Tripura and Sabroom in south Tripura district. It would assemble in Agartala after a week’s state-wide march. The National Socialist Party of Tripura, now the ruling party of the TTAADC, will supervise the first ever peace march in this insurgency-affected State.

“We appealed to all political parties in the State to extend whole hearted support to the peace march in the larger interest of the state,’’ Mr Tripura, a veteran tribal leader, said. He said militancy had already damaged Tripura’s development and it should be stopped at this moment to save the State’s future and its new generation. Tribals are the main victims of insurgency even as some misguided tribal youths talk about an imaginary and unrealistic Swadhin Tripura (independent Tripura), he observed. The State Government had organised peace meetings in all the 40 blocks during July and August and urged the tribal guerillas to leave the path of violence and join the mainstream to make the State a model one.

A large number of surrendered militants, guardians and parents of tribal guerillas also took part in these peace meetings.

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