New Delhi: The Supreme Court said on Monday it will hear a plea seeking voting facilities for around 18,000 people displaced internally due to the ethnic strife in Manipur for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The polling for two Lok Sabha seats of Manipur will be held in two phases on April 19 and 26.
The plea was mentioned for urgent hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, with the counsel telling the court that the first phase of polling has to take place on April 19.
“There are 18,000 internally displaced people. They want to vote in the elections in Manipur,” the lawyer said.
“I will give you an early date,” the CJI assured the advocate.
Manipur has been caught in a spiral of violence since May 2023. More than 160 people have been killed and several hundred injured since ethnic violence first broke out in the state on May 3 when a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status.
Though the number and intensity of incidents of violence are slowly ebbing away, many people are still living in relief camps far from their homes.
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