Gangtok, March 27 The two main opposition parties in Sikkim, the SDF and CAP, will boycott the municipal elections to be held on April 24, alleging an undemocratic environment created by the ruling SKM.
Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) senior vice president and spokesperson Krishna Kharel told reporters on Friday that the proposed municipal election is "unconstitutional" and raised concerns over what he termed unequal seat reservation in the electoral process, which is why the party is sitting out of the urban local body elections.
Kharel said that with the formal announcement of the elections, several "serious lapses" have come to light, particularly in the matter of seat reservations, which the SDF party strongly condemns.
He alleged that a review of the overall reservation framework reveals that the seat allocation has not been carried out in proportion to population, raising serious concerns about fairness and constitutional adherence.
"According to the constitution, reservation must be done in proportion to the population. In contradiction, discrepancies are evident across multiple categories. For example, OBC (central list), which constitutes 25.64% of the population according to the last census, were proportionally to be given 17–18 seats; however, only eight seats have been reserved. Similarly, the OBC (state list), with a population share of 21.89%, should have received around 14 seats. Instead, they have been allotted only 11 seats," he said.
Kharel claimed that these inconsistencies clearly indicate that the reservation framework for the upcoming municipal elections has not been structured in accordance with population proportions, thereby undermining the constitutional principles of equitable representation.
The SDF senior vice president added that the demographic composition of specific areas has not been considered while determining reservations. For instance, in areas with a significant presence of OBC (central list) communities, reservations have been assigned to other categories, raising concerns about the basis of such decisions.
The Citizen Action Party (CAP) on Thursday announced that it will boycott the upcoming urban local body (ULB) elections in Sikkim, while extending support to "qualified and capable" independent candidates across all 63 wards.
Addressing a press conference in Gangtok, CAP spokesperson Albert Gurung said that the decision was taken in protest against the ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha’s (SKM) move to conduct the municipal elections on a partisan basis, which he termed a "betrayal" of SKM’s 2019 manifesto promise.