Easter Sunday: Tripura Christians demand change in ADC poll date

Agartala: A day after the state election commission announced that elections for the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) would be held on April 4, the United Christan Forum for Human Rights wrote to the election commissioner demanding to reschedule the poll as the date coincides with Easter Sunday.

The Forum said April 4 falls on a Sunday, and it is the feast day for Christians.

“We respect the sentiments of everyone and every religion because India has proved to be a peaceful haven for different religions and cultures. Being a pluralistic state, Indian has a great feeling of nationality and to generate or maintain this kind of feeling, the nature of our constitution is secular”, the Forum said in its letter.

We request you to kindly change the date, the letter added.

The CPI (M) leader and former MP Jitendra Chaudhury also questioned the intention of the state election commission. “India is a secular country, and we respect all faiths with equal dignity. April 4 is Easter Sunday, a special day for Christians. The state election commission should not have chosen the date for ADC polling”, he said in a social media post.

Congress state vice-president Tapas Dey said that it is most unfortunate that the state election commission has fixed the poll date on a festive day.

“This has cast doubt over whether the SEC is dancing to the government’s tunes with a design to deprive a section of voters who belong to a religious minority. We urge to change the poll date to allow all voters,” Dey said.

Earlier, the state election commissioner Manik Lal Dey announced the schedule for the district council poll. It said all festivities and examination were kept in mind while preparing the election schedule.

“The notification for the district council will be issued by the returning officers on March 4. The last date for the nomination submission will be March 12, scrutiny of nominations will be done on March 15. The last date for withdrawal of candidates March 17,” Dey said.

According to the published final list of voters, there are 8,65,041 voters in the district council. There are a total of 1,244 polling stations across 28 seats of the district council.