The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a Statutory Resolution to extend President’s Rule in Manipur for six more months, with Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai asserting that peace and normalcy was returning to the State and that it was found necessary to extend President’s Rule to ensure that this continues.
For the extension of President’s Rule to come into effect, the Rajya Sabha will also be required to pass the resolution. A notice for this resolution was submitted in the Rajya Sabha last week.
Manipur was placed under President’s Rule in February this year after erstwhile Chief Minister N. Biren Singh stepped down, nearly two years after the ethnic conflict began in the State between the valley-based Meitei community and the hills-based Scheduled Tribe Kuki-Zo group of communities.
While replying to the discussion on the Statutory Resolution in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Mr. Rai said that only one incident of violence with one death had been reported in the State in the last 8 months, and none in the last four months. He added that since the imposition of President’s Rule in the State, over 2,500 weapons, 1,900 explosives, and 30,000 rounds of ammunitions had been recovered.
He added that the violence in Manipur had spread due to some aspects of directions in a High Court order related to reservations, further asserting that the conflict there was ethnic and not religious as alleged by members of the Opposition. Mr. Rai also noted that the violence in Manipur continued as “people from outside” were also involved, going on to compare violent incidents, deaths, and ethnic conflicts under UPA governments and NDA governments.
Calls for fresh elections
During the discussion on the resolution, Inner Manipur MP A. Bimol Akoijam of the Indian National Congress, objected to extending President’s Rule, and called for the Assembly in the State to dissolved so that fresh elections can be held and a government can be formed with the mandate of the people. All India Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar too called for fresh elections in the State. Mr. Akoijam began his address by questioning the time allotted for discussion on Manipur compared to what is allotted to issues like Operation Sindoor or the Constitution.
During his address, Mr. Akoijam alleged that the imposition of President’s Rule in February was not rooted in the intent to restore constitutional order but to “save the ruling party from embarrassment”. He further said that if the Union government wanted to impose President’s Rule, it could have done so when the violence began in 2023.
“Let’s have clarity first that President’s Rule was not imposed to recover constitutional order. In collusion with the State government, the Union government itself has subverted Constitutional order and creating lawlessness,” he said. Even as Mr. Akoijam spoke of the alleged “collusion” between the Centre and the erstwhile State government, Speaker Om Birla told him not to speak of things “without evidence”.
‘Executive accountability’
The Inner Manipur MP also called for “executive accountability” for what had happened in Manipur, with BJP MP Nishikant Dubey interjecting to note that since Manipur is under the Governor’s control presently, it was not appropriate to discuss this matter in the House.
Directing his remarks towards the West Bengal MP Ms. Dastidar, Mr. Rai also brought up the issue of election violence in the State, alleging that more people had been killed in these attacks than in Manipur’s ethnic conflict.
