Meghalaya govt prepares fresh electoral roll for GHADC

Shillong: A fresh electoral roll for the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) is being prepared by the Meghalaya govt following the gubernatorial approval of amended rules, effectively barring non-tribals from contesting elections to the tribal council.It is now mandatory for a candidate contesting the council elections to possess a Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificate.Following the development, a new electoral roll will also be prepared to disallow non-tribals from voting in the council elections. “The electoral roll has to also again be revisited in this particular case,” deputy chief minister, in-charge district council affairs, Prestone Tynsong said, adding that “necessary instruction” in this regard would be given to the GHADC by the state govt.“A separate electoral roll will be required for GHADC. It is needed because for Khasi and Jaintia district councils, we have an electoral roll of only tribal voters. Now that this amendment has taken place, we have to also make applicable the practices done by Khasi and Jaintia,” he said.Tynsong said the state govt would also write to the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC), urging them to amend their respective rules in line with the GHADC.“Very soon we are going to write a letter from the govt side to both the KHADC and JHADC that they should also amend the very same Clause 8 of the AD Rules and send it to the governor for approval,” he said.“We are so thankful to the governor who has ultimately approved the amendments passed by the GHADC relating to Rule 8 where ultimately it was replaced by the word ‘only scheduled tribe’,” he told the media, adding that fresh voter registration would now be taken up.The GHADC, during a special session on March 23, amended Rule 8 of the Assam and Meghalaya Autonomous District (Constitution of District Councils) Rules, 1951, ensuring that only scheduled tribe candidates can contest in elections to the council.