Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi reacting to the Manipur Chief Minister N.Biren Singh’s resignation, said that he quit the post following “mounting public pressure”.
The LoP, who visited Manipur three times after the ethnic violence broke out on May 3, 2023, in a post on the X said: “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.”
He added that the resignation of Biren Singh shows that mounting public pressure, the SC investigation and the no-confidence motion by the Congress have forced a reckoning.
“But the most urgent priority is to restore peace in the state and work to heal the wounds of the people of Manipur. PM Modi must visit Manipur at once, listen to the people and finally explain his plan to bring back normalcy,” he said.
The LoP’s third visit came during the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which started from Manipur on January 14 last year. The 67-day-long Yatra ended in Mumbai covering 85 districts of 14 states.
The Congress kicked off the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur with a promise to “bring peace and harmony” to the ethnic violence-hit state.
LoP Rahul Gandhi in his speech in the parliament and outside the parliament urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Manipur and restore peace and normalcy.
Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary and parliament member Jairam Ramesh said that the Congress was all set to move a no-confidence motion against the Chief Minister and his Council of Ministers in the Manipur Assembly on Monday and sensing the climate, the Manipur CM has resigned.
“This was a demand that the Congress has been making since early May 2023, when Manipur erupted. The Chief Minister’s resignation was belated. The people of Manipur now await a visit by our Frequent Flier PM who is off to France and the USA now – and who has found neither the time nor the inclination to go to Manipur these past twenty months,” Ramesh, who also visited Manipur several times during the past two years after the ethnic violence started, said in a post on the X.
Over 250 people including women and children were killed, over 1,500 injured and over 70,000 people displaced after the ethnic violence broke out on May 3 last year after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’, organised in the hill districts to protest the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status.
The rioting also left thousands of houses, government and non-government properties, and religious installations destroyed or damaged.
Over 60,000 Central security forces, including the Army and Assam Rifles, have been deployed in Manipur following the outbreak of violence.
In view of the ethnic strife in Manipur, approximately 50,650 men, women and children belonging to different communities have been displaced and are now sheltered in 350 camps set up in schools, government buildings and auditoriums in Manipur.
Thousands of displaced people, mostly belonging to Kuki-Zo tribals, also sheltered in Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland and Meghalaya.
