New Delhi: An all-party meeting held to discuss the ongoing Manipur crisis Saturday saw opposition parties criticise the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government and demand the resignation of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh — a development that comes even as violence continues for the 52nd straight day.
While attending the meeting called by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, opposition leaders demanded that an all-party delegation be sent to the state to initiate peace talks and that a reconciliation commission be set up to record atrocities in the state, especially against women and children.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who landed in Egypt earlier in the day after an official state visit to the US, also came under attack for his “continued silence on the violence”.
The meeting took place hours after a mob set fire to a warehouse owned by L. Susindro Meitei, the state’s public health engineering and consumer and food affairs minister.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O’ Brien was among those who demanded that an all-party delegation be sent to the state within a week.
“The Union government has to decide whether it wants to create divisions to suit the interest of one political party or it wants to create lasting unity and peace. It must accept its failure and course correct,” he told reporters after the meeting, adding that such a situation was unprecedented.
“The Union home minister visited the state but met only selected people. He only went to the camps and heard only the echo chamber. He didn’t meet people on the streets. There are serious issues of insurgency, land ownership, and law and order that need to be addressed,” he said.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’s deputy leader in Rajya Sabha, said political parties had demanded that “responsibility for the chaos should be fixed at the state level”.
“The government should build confidence at the earliest and an all-party delegation should be sent to the state. But first, the chief minister should resign. Only then can there be peace.”
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Manoj Jha said: “The entire opposition went to the extent of saying that the person who is heading the administration should be sacked. You can’t have peace until the person is in charge”.
Pinaki Mishra, Biju Janata Dal’s MP from Puri, however, defended the government saying that the Supreme Court is currently hearing the case. “We should wait. We shouldn’t jump to any conclusion.”
The statements came after Shah briefed them about his visit to Manipur earlier this month. According to official sources, he said that not only had he met many stakeholders but Nityanand Rai, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, also stayed back in the state for 21 days “in order to bring normalcy”.
Briefing reporters about the meeting later in the day, Sambit Patra, the spokesperson for the ruling BJP and the leader in-charge of the party’s affairs in Manipur, said that Shah had told party leaders about his government’s “initiatives” to bring back peace, including establishing a 51-member peace committee, fencing the border adjoining Myanmar, and setting up a commission of enquiry to probe the violence. Armed groups have also been told to hand in their weapons, he said.
“The government has done fencing of the 10 km border adjoining Myanmar. The tender process for fencing around 80 more kilometers is ongoing. Biometric systems have been put in place to stop infiltration from Myanmar. Several accords have been signed in the past to bring peace in the state,” he said.
Violence in the northeastern state — which first broke out on 3 May after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was taken out by a student body to oppose the demand for inclusion of non-tribal Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category — has claimed over a hundred lives and left around a thousand people injured.
Among those wounded is Vungzagin Valte was a three-time BJP MLA who was almost lynched by a mob last month while returning from a meeting with CM Biren Singh. He escaped with grievous injuries and is still believed to be critical.
Also read: Manipur violence shows death of civil society. One ethnic group’s autonomy isn’t the solution
‘Complete breakdown of law and order’
Speaking after the meeting, DMK leader Tiruchi N. Siva that while the situation in the state was concerning it was “even more saddening that the prime minister has not spoken a single word about it in the last 50 days”.
“There’s a complete breakdown of law and order in the state. The chief minister has failed,” he said. “The home minister has noted down all our points and assured us that the government is making every effort to bring peace in the state.”
Meanwhile, sources quoted Shah as having assured political parties that no deaths have been reported since 13 June and that the situation is “slowly returning to normal”. The home minister is also learnt to have said that not a day has gone by without him not updating the prime minister about the situation.
Among those who attended the meeting was former Manipur chief minister O. Ibobi Singh, who claimed that several of the state government’s attempts to intervene had failed.
Speaking at a press briefing after the meeting, Ibobi demanded that the central government should disarm armed groups immediately, restore peace and announce relief packages for the people who have been affected — all “without compromise to India’s territorial integrity.”
Among those who attended the meeting were BJP president J.P Nadda, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s John Brittas, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s M.Thambi Durai, and Samajwadi Party’s Ram Gopal Yadav.
Significantly, chief ministers of neighbouring Sikkim, Meghalaya and Mizoram — Prem Singh Tamang, Conrad Sangma and Zoramthanga — also attended the meeting, although both Manipur CM Biren Singh and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma were absent.
Sources said that Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras wanted to begin speaking first but TMC leader O’ Brien asked Shah to let the Congress, as the biggest opposition party, be given the first chance to speak.
Also Read: More than 6 weeks on, Manipur is still ablaze. It’s a saga of failures, from state govt to Centre
Congress, BJP engage in Twitter war
Meanwhile, Congress and the BJP engaged in a war of words both before and after a meeting.
In a tweet he posted earlier in the day, Congress’s communications in charge Ramesh said: “52 days after Manipur started burning the HM has finally seen it fit to call an all-party meeting on Manipur at 3pm today. This meeting should actually have been chaired by the PM who has kept silent all this while. It should have been held in Imphal as a demonstration of national anguish. The BJP has failed the people of Manipur miserably”.
Congress has been demanding that the Modi government send an all-party delegation to Manipur in order to restore peace.
Later in the day, Congress’s Jairam Ramesh posted a tweet calling the meeting “an eyewash” and accusing the central government of not having given enough time to Ibobi to speak.
“As the principal Opposition party, our representative, the senior most leader from Manipur, 3-time elected CM Okram Ibobi Singh, was not allowed to present his points representing the pain and anguish of the people of Manipur,” he said in the tweet.
He further said: “He was the only leader from Manipur in the all-party meeting today, and it is an insult not only to the former CM and the Congress party, but the people of Manipur, that their representative was not allowed to fully put forth his point of view. We are sharing the 8 points on behalf of @INCIndia, which includes the immediate removal of the CM of Manipur, without which no progress can be made towards peace and normalcy in Manipur.”
In its response to the Congress’s accusations, the BJP’s Information Technology cell in-charge Amit Malviya blamed the Congress and Ibobi Singh of the widening rift between Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur.
“In 2015, the state’s majority Meitei community reinforced their demand for the Inner Line Permit system, spearheaded by the Joint Action Committee on the Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS), to safeguard interests of the indigenous people of the state,” Malviya said in a long post.
He further said; “The JCILPS launched a two-month-long intense agitation against the Congress-led Manipur government, which resulted in CM Okram Ibobi Singh drawing up three controversial bills namely the Protection of Manipur People Bill, 2015, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2015, and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015.”
These bills, he said, triggered protests from the state’s Tribal community, including the state’s two major tribal groups — Nagas and Kukis.
“The protests resulted in mobs torching the residences of the then MP of Outer Manipur Thangso Baite, the state’s minister-in-charge for Family Welfare Phungzaphang Tonsimg and five MLAs, including Manga Vaiphei of Henglep Assembly constituency and Vungzagin Valte of Thanlon. It also resulted in the death of nine protesters, in police firing.”
The ongoing conflict, he said, is a consequence of Manipur High Court’s directive in March that the Biren Singh government should recommend including Meiteis in the state’s Scheduled Tribe list.
“It is a historical conflict and has nothing to do with the current regime,” Malviya said. “It is the Congress that historically locked up the two prominent communities in a no win situation. The Congress should therefore be mindful of its devastating legacy in pushing Manipur to the brink, and act responsibly, as the government resolves the situation.”
The Communist Party Of India, meanwhile, accused the central government of not inviting them to the meeting.
In a tweet he posted earlier in the day, CPI MP Binoy Viswam said: “Home Minister should explain why the CPI was not invited to the All party meeting on Manipur. Our National Executive Committee Member P Sandosh Kumar MP was assigned by the party for the meeting. Home ministry can learn from people of Manipur about (the) role of CPI in building peace”.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
Also read: ‘Modi, Amit Shah didn’t intervene in Manipur violence due to hidden agenda’, says ex-CM Ibobi Singh