The decision of the two district councils to initiate delimitation of constituencies is to delay the elections, Voice of the People Party (VPP) spokesperson, Batskhem Myrboh said.
He said it is understandable that delimitation will bring parity in terms of the number of voters but questioned, “What surprises us is, what the KHADC was doing during these five years?”
Myrboh said when the tenure of the house is almost ending the district councils seem over-interested in tackling the issue. He said it seems they don’t want to see the council election happening in time.
The term of the present houses in KHADC and JHADC will expire on March 5, 2024 and as such the elections have to be held by February 2024.
“As far as we can see the one reason could be, that they want to delay the election because they are insecure about the strong wave of the VPP and some of the sitting MDCs know very well that they will be defeated,” he claimed.
Stating that the tenure of the house can only be extended if there is a state of emergency, Myrboh said that when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the state, the term of the GHADC was extended because it was an emergency. “At present there are no grounds at all to extend the house,” he added.
“If the house is extended, it will set a bad precedent and not right in a democracy. It is like snatching away the right of the people to choose their representative at the right time,” he said.
He said any move to extend the term of the house would be disrespect for democracy.
The VPP spokesperson also said the party will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and the district council polls from all the seats. He said the party is continuously touring every nook and corner of the Khasi-Jaiñtia region with the sole purpose to propagate the party’s ideology of “clean politics”.
