Around 100 people staged a protest in Yangon’s Seikkan township on Wednesday to demand the government scrap its plan to merge it with neighbouring townships.

The protestors, who dubbed themselves the “Seikkan township lovers,” said the move was an attempt by the NLD at gerrymandering that would abolish one of the few Yangon seats the opposition USDP has a chance of winning.

“Our party will be hurt the most,” said Nay Myo Aung, a former USDP MP-elect for Seikkan who attended the rally.

Nay Myo Aung beat the NLD candidate by 150 votes last year, but he was later removed from his seat after Myanmar Now reported on allegations that he had bribed voters with low-interest loans.

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And while the party won the seat in the 2010 general election, that poll was widely seen as rigged in the USDP’s favour and was boycotted by the NLD.

The NLD won the seat in 2015 but its MP, Maung Maung Than, died last year, triggering the by-election that briefly gave the seat to the USDP.

San Kyaw, the USDP regional lawmaker for Seikkan’s other constituency, said the NLD government wants to dissolve Seikkan because they were defeated there. He said he will speak against the plan in the Yangon regional parliament.

Than Htike Aung, the NLD’s MP for Seikkan, said he recognised only a handful of people in the crowd as residents of the township and the others were “strangers” when he attended the protest as an observer.

“Only about 10 of Seikkan township’s 1,500 residents want the township to remain one,” he told Myanmar Now.

Seikkan is Yangon’s smallest township with around 1,500 residents. It covers half a square mile and runs along the Yangon river.

The local government says it wants to split Hlaing Tharyar, the city’s largest township with some 700,000 residents, in two so the area can be administered better.

Myanmar’s constitution says the country must be divided into a total of 330 townships, meaning Hlaing Thayar cannot be split in two without abolishing a township somewhere else.

The sprawling industrial zone, which sits along the Yangon River in the city’s northwest, has seen its population swell in recent years.

Myanmar Now revealed in November last year Nay Myo Aung helped more than 100 potential voters secure loans of up to 60,000 kyats during the by-election campaign. Several constituents said after the election they had not yet had to make any repayments even though they were due.

The loans were from an obscure company with a USDP party official on its board of directors

A Union Election Commission tribunal ruled to remove Nay Myo Aung from his seat in May after finding him guilty of cheating.

He was also found guilty of campaigning for votes in the name of religion, setting up his party office on government-owned land and fabricating election expenses, tribunal chairman Myint Naing told Myanmar Now.