Fighting Aadhaar through ballot
GUWAHATI, February 18, 2018 00:00 IST
Ex-rebel in the fray on Trinamool ticket
More former militants are contesting the February 27 Meghalaya Assembly polls than in 2013. The primary reason why one of them has chosen the ballot over the bullet is to add power to the fight against Aadhaar, the biometric scheme.
Aadhaar has not been implemented yet in Meghalaya along with Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. Of the three States, Meghalaya has been the most vocal against the identification number perceived to be intrusive.
“Aadhaar has caused a great deal of resentment among the tribal people of Meghalaya. We do not want to be in a regulated system, as we are Scheduled Tribes and residents of a Sixth Schedule area where such impositions are not applicable,” Bernard N. Marak, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate from the South Tura Assembly seat, said.
“I chose Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool because hers is probably the only party opposed to Aadhaar,” Mr. Marak told The Hindu .
Mr. Marak was the chairman of a breakaway group of the underground A’chik National Volunteers Council that declared truce in 2014.
He is not the only ex-rebel seeking a berth in the 60-member Assembly. The Mawhati seat has two former militants pitted against each other – independent MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang and James Sylliang of the People’s Democratic Front. Both spent their underground days in the same outfit, Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council.