Manipur Census Deferred Amid Fissures Over NRC Demand

Gist The Union government has deferred the 2027 Census in Manipur following concerted demands from Meitei and Naga groups to first implement a National Register of Citizens NRC . This sequencing is demanded to ensure that undocumented immigrants, particularly those displaced by the crisis in Myanmar, are not formalised into the state's population figures or future voter bases. For a civil services aspirant, this development highlights the volatile intersection of demography, internal security, and electoral delimitation, showing how a routine administrative exercise like the Census can become a site of intense political contestation. Background The distribution of political power in the 60-member Manipur Assembly is deeply tied to geography, with 40 seats in the Meitei-dominated valley and 20 seats in the Naga and Kuki-Zomi dominated hills . The current electoral map is vastly outdated; it is based on the 1973 delimitation exercise, which utilised demographic data from the 1971 Census . Manipur, along with Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland, was excluded from the nationwide delimitation exercise conducted between 2002 and 2008 due to security concerns and widespread regional disputes over…