The Government yesterday presented the Registration of Electors (Special Provisions) Bill to provide for Internally Displaced Persons to get registered as voters in the electoral district where they permanently reside prior to May 18, 2009.
According to the Bill, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Registration of Electors Act No 44 of 1980 and subject to Article 89 of the Constitution, any citizen of Sri Lanka who has been an Internally Displaced Person, whose name appeared in the register of elections for any electoral district in the Northern Province or Eastern Province for any year until the end of 2009 and whose name has not been entered in any register in operation subsequent to the year 2009, will be able to register in the electoral district he had been living prior to May 18 2009.
However,those who have not reached the age of 18 at the time, he or she got displaced and those children of displaced persons who have been born after the displacement will not be entitled to this facility.