Overview
- A delegation of 14 Meitei civil society organisations met the Registrar General and senior Home Ministry officials in Delhi and on Wednesday publicly demanded the National Register of Citizens be updated before Census 2027, warning they will block census operations in Manipur if the demand is not met.
- The groups insist the NRC update use 1951 as the base year and have asked the Centre to withhold final 2027 population figures for the state and to suspend any delimitation of parliamentary or assembly seats until the NRC is completed.
- Central officials told the delegation the matter would be taken up with the Manipur government but have not announced any formal decision to start an NRC in the state or to delay census activity.
- The demand is politically sensitive and contested locally because tribal and hill communities such as Kuki‑Zo groups dispute migration as the core cause of conflict and fear the exercise could affect Scheduled Tribe lists, electoral representation and access to local rights.
- Manipur has not had delimitation since the 1971 census and activists cite decades of cross‑border movement along the Indo‑Myanmar frontier as drivers of demographic change, so a stalled census or a fresh NRC could delay seat redrawing, shift political power and prolong uncertainty for displaced residents still recovering from the May 2023 violence.