Colombo: Sri Lanka's Election Commissioner said already 20,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Menik Farm welfare village have applied for voting at the upcoming presidential election.
The IDPs are required to register for voting in the election on or before 24th of December.
Election monitoring groups in the country say that a majority of the IDPs may lose their voting rights as there is not enough time for them to register.
Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Risath Bathiyutheen said that Grama Seva officers in the welfare centers are assisting the IDPs to fill their applications for voter registration.
The Minister added that so far 25,000 Muslim IDPs in Puttalam have submitted their applications.
However, the Election monitoring group, Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE) says that not enough effort had been made to help the IDP to register. Less than 7,000 IDPs have registered with the authorities to vote at the presidential elections, the election watchdog says.
"Around 160 000 IDPs are eligible to vote and out of that only 1,600 from Jaffna and 5,000 from Vavuniya have registered. The IDPs should register before Wednesday in order to vote" CaFFE spokesman Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon said.
The government must pursue a more aggressive campaign to register the IDP voters, the spokesman urged.
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