New Delhi: With the BJP parliamentary board appointing national general secretary Tarun Chugh the central observer for the election of the legislative party leader in Manipur, the stage is being set for restoration of a popular government in the state, 11 days before President’s Rule is due to end.
Currently, a majority of the NDA MLAs from Manipur including Meiteis, Kukis and Nagas are in Delhi after being summoned for a meeting by the BJP’s central leadership on Saturday.
While the BJP MLAs are expected to meet central leaders, including the party’s north-east coordinator Sambit Patra at the party headquarters at 3 pm Tuesday, a meeting with the Naga MLAs will follow at Manipur Bhawan, a BJP source told ThePrint.
“There will be clarity on who will be chief minister post the meeting,” the source added.
When President’s Rule was imposed in Manipur last February—following the political instability in the aftermath of the ethnic clashes that had first erupted in May 2023 between the largely Hindu Meitei and tribal Christian Kuki communities—the state assembly had been placed under suspended animation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is in a majority in the 60-member Manipur assembly, which currently has 59 MLAs after the death of National People’s Party (NPP) legislator N. Kayisii last January. BJP MLAs, including seven from the Kuki-Zo community, hold 32 assembly seats. Five Janata Dal (United) MLAs had joined the BJP after the 2022 assembly elections, taking the party’s strength to 37 MLAs, effectively.
The remaining MLAs include six from Conrad Sangma-led NPP, a former BJP ally. In November 2024, the NPP had withdrawn support from the N. Biren Singh government in the aftermath of the conflict. However, the party continues to support the BJP at the Centre.
Another former BJP ally, the Kuki People’s Alliance, has two MLAs. Additionally, there are five MLAs from the Naga People’s Front (NPF), three Independents, five from Congress, and one from the JD(U) in Manipur.
A BJP MLA, requesting anonymity, said that a majority of the party MLAs, including former chief minister N. Biren Singh are in the Capital. Besides the Meitei legislators, Kuki MLAs as well as those from NPP and NPF—both NDA allies—arrived in Delhi Sunday night.
BJP’s central leadership has had several rounds of meetings over the past four months, with MLAs from the party, including those from the Kuki-Zo community, and allies NPP and NPF, to assess if the situation is conducive for government formation.
What has added to the Centre’s challenges in restoring a popular government is the hard position taken by the party’s seven Kuki-Zo MLAs, who have conveyed to the central leadership that they will participate in forming a government only in case of a written assurance that their demand for a Union Territory with legislature will be met before the current assembly’s tenure ends in March 2027.
The violence in Manipur has claimed over 250 lives so far, displacing over 60,000 from both communities. Though it has gradually subsided, sporadic incidents have kept the situation volatile.
In January, a Meitei man, who had gone to meet his Kuki partner in Churachandpur, was killed by suspected Kuki militants. There was also a flare-up of tensions after some Kuki-Zo houses were set ablaze in a village in Kangpokpi district by a fringe faction of a Naga underground group in January.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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