Election Commission promises voter ID cards for riot displaced

(Ahmedabad Newsline
April 06, 2007)

EC promises voter ID cards for riot displaced
Express News Service

Ahmedabad, April 5: The Election Commission has promised to ensure that each of the eligible voters, living in the resettlement colonies for `internally displaced persons’, will be issued photo identity cards at their present place of residence after a survey by a special team.

This assurance was given to a delegation of the Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti (AVHRS) led by its convener Yusuf Sheikh, ANHAD representative Shabnam Hashmi and Jan Vikas representative Gagan Sethi called on Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi and Navin Chawla as also Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat Vinod Babbar on Thursday.

While asking AVHRS to provide as comprehensive list of eligible voters, election commissioners instructed Babbar to co-ordinate and insure implementation at the earliest.

Talking to Express Newsline over phone, Hashmi said that the delegation explained in detail the problems faced by the internally displaced in exercising their franchise since they were ordinary residence of the displaced colonies and their original documents had been all destroyed during the 2002 riot, hence they were unable to cast their vote in the last State election and subsequent local body elections.

Hashmi said that the delegation also met the newly appointed chairperson of National Human rights Commission Ram Babu and apprised him of the present situation of the internally displaced as well as the ongoing human rights violations in Gujarat against the minorities.

The AVHRS, she said, gave a charter of demands and requested the intervention of NHRC in ensuring the security of the minorities and appropriate rehabilitation as per earlier directives of NHRC.

She said that NHRC chief assured the delegation that he would take it up on a top priority. She said that some members of the delegation gave their personal testimonies of the continued violence and discrimination by the state administration.

The delegation, according to her, also met the chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities Hamid Ansari and urged him to take forward the unfinished task of ensuring a special package for the internally displaced which the NCM has recommended in its report to the Prime Minister, which was demanded by the Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti and endorsed by an eminent jury including an NCM member on first February 1, 2007 at the Convention of Internally Displaced at Ahmedabad which was attended by 3,500 internally displaced.

She said Ansari expressed concern at the ongoing discrimination against the minorities in Gujarat and assured the delegation that NCM will take up with appropriate authorities the demand of a special package for the internally displaced.