Imphal: Rajya Sabha MP from Manipur Leishemba Sanajaoba, during the zero hours in the Parliament on Thursday, raised concern for the protection of the indigenous people in this sensitive border state.
MP Sanajaoba drawing the attention of the Rajya Sabha, expressed his fear that Manipur will have a huge demographic imbalance and the indigenous people will suffer a lot in their homeland soon if positive measures are not taken. This is because of the abnormal and illogical increase of villages in Kangpokpi, Tengnoupal, Chandel, Churachandpur, and Pherzawl districts from 1969 to 2024.
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During the period, the villages in these districts increased from 731 to 1624, an abnormal jump of 593 villages, that is 122 percent in about 50 years, MP said.
Though MP Sanajaoba did not mention the name of the particular communities inhabited in these districts, the Kuki-Zo-Hmar people predominantly inhabited these five districts.
Cautioning the imbalanced growth of population in these districts, MP Sanajaoba further expressed his fear that the illegal immigrants are trying to penetrate the Indian administration and also playing electoral politics through illegal infiltration by taking advantage of the porous Indo-Myanmar international border.
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Manipur shares a 398-kilometer border with Myanmar. In contrast, in the Naga tribal-dominated areas, the increase was a mere 49 from 527 to 576 villages, only a 9 percent increase. The Nagas are the indigenous people of Manipur, MP Sanajaoba added.
Against these backdrops, Sanajaoba said that before proceeding further for any kind of alteration, like the delimitation process in the existing electoral constituencies, it is mandatory to detect the illegal immigrants first by implementing the National Register of Citizens with the base year 1951 and deport them to their respective countries from Manipur.