Twenty-one months since the start of the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur, the state’s embattled Chief Minister n Biren Singh submitted his resignation to Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla in Imphal on Sunday evening.
Singh had left Imphal for Delhi – the second such trip to the national capital this week – on Saturday evening. He made this trip without any of his cabinet colleagues.
According to sources, Union Home Minister What Shah held an almost two-hour meeting on Sunday, where BJP national president J P Nadda was also present. Singh flew back to Imphal on Sunday afternoon along with the BJP’s Northeast Coordinator Sambit Patra.
On Sunday evening, Singh, Patra and other senior Manipur BJP leaders, including cabinet ministers Th Biswajit Singh, Sapam Ranjan Singh, Govindas Konthoujam and Th Basanta Singh, met Governor Ajau Kumar Bhalla, where Singh submitted his resignation.
His resignation comes amidst a renewed political churn in Manipur ahead of the assembly session, which is scheduled to begin on Monday.
The Indian Express had reported that several BJP MLAs from Manipur, who had been upset with Biren’s leadership and the party-led Centre’s management of the Manipur crisis, had again started putting pressure on the party leadership.
Dissident BJP MLAs from Manipur The Indian Express spoke to had suggested that they were gearing up to take a “big and unprecedented” step in the upcoming assembly session if there would be no change before then, while the Congress had been discussing introducing a no-confidence motion in the assembly. A source who was present with Singh while he submitted the letter suggested that the legislative assembly is likely to be in suspended animation for a while.
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In his resignation letter, Singh emphasised five points as “a request” to the Central Government through the Governor.
These include maintaining the “territorial integrity” of the state; a crackdown on “illegal immigrants”; continuing “the fight against drugs and narco terrorism”; the continuation of the revised Free Movement Regime with the application of biometric checks; and the construction of the Indo-Myanmar border. All are issues which he pressed on through the course of his Chief Ministership.
The Congress said that the resignation came “too late”.
Congress in charge for Manipur Girish Chondakar said, “If he had resigned earlier, lives, properties, businesses, and education of children could have been saved. He should have resigned a year and a half ago. The trauma that the state has suffered can’t be reversed.”
“He has resigned because he was running a minority government. He didn’t have support from his own MLAs. Biren Singh has destroyed this state,” he said.
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Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhireiterated his demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi must visit Manipur and “finally explain his plan to bring back normalcy”. He added that Singh’s resignation showed that “mounting public pressure, the Supreme Court investigation and the no-confidence motion by the Congress have forced a reckoning”.
“For nearly two years, BJP’s CM Biren Singh instigated division in Manipur. PM Modi allowed him to continue despite the violence, loss of life, and the destruction of the idea of India in Manipur. The most urgent priority is to restore peace in the state, and work to heal the wounds of the people of Manipur,” Rahul said.
— With inputs from Asad Rehman
