New Delhi: Members of opposition parties raised the issue of the Manipur Tapes in the Rajya Sabha a day ago on March 17, with Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party demanding that a proper investigation into audio clips to verify if they were indeed of former chief minister N. Biren Singh’s.
Singh said that if they are, then Biren should be arrested and investigated for his role in the state’s ethnic violence.
In his response to the discussion on the budget of Manipur, which is currently under President’s Rule, Singh began by saying that when he first raised the issue of the ethnic violence in the northeastern state in the parliament, he was suspended from the House for 11 months, “the longest in the country’s parliamentary history.”
He accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of spreading violence, supporting Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse and shirking Gandhi’s professed philosophy of non-violence. The Rajya Sabha member said, “Instead of trying to bring peace, the state government of Manipur was burning the state and the central government was supporting it…it is because the ruling party is interested in only spreading violence.”
The audio tapes were reported on extensively by The Wire‘s Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty last year after the recordings were submitted to the Commission on Manipur Violence set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Read the five-part ‘Manipur Tapes’ reports of The Wire: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Referring to Trinamool Congress member Sushmita Dev’s mention of the tapes, the opposition MP said, “May be she didn’t get a chance to talk about those recordings properly. But those recordings are significant. A news website, The Wire, had brought those recordings into public domain. If it is indeed Biren Singh’s voice, he should be arrested and investigated for fanning violence in that state.”
Singh referred to a particular part of the audio tapes where the voice identified in the Commission’s submission as that of the chief minister’s, was heard telling a set of people that Union home minister Amit Shah asked him if he or his police force was “using bombs”.
“‘Chup ke se marna hai (use it quietly)’, he (Biren Singh) said,” Singh told the parliament.
While the members of the treasury bench were shouting at Singh and demanding an apology, House deputy Speaker Harivansh asked Singh to “authenticate” what he said.
“The audio tape is in public domain, sir. I will show it,” he said.
‘Not Manipur’
Singh also joined other members of the opposition, including those from Congress, TMC, Communist Party of India and Biju Janata Dal to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not visiting the violence-hit state. “Otherwise, they (BJP members) are obsessed with the letter M. Say, mutton, machli (fish), Mughal, Muslim but not Manipur. The prime minister has not got time to visit Manipur in the last two years…” he said.
Deb, while responding to the discussion, also referred to the BJP’s slogan of “double engine sarkar (government)”, often used by the prime minister, to state that it “is a form of intimidation to the people of the state that for progress vote of BJP…opposition states are deprived…this is a debauchery of federalism…the people of Manipur gave BJP double engine sarkar twice, but it is testimony of the failure of that double engine sarkar…pushed into President’s Rule to save the prime minister from embarrassment…”
She questioned the grant of Rs 500 crore as contingency fund and sought a financial package instead for the state.
Dev, delivering a fiery attack on the ruling party and the budget in the presence of the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, also explained in the House “the chronology” of Biren Singh’s resignation, including the Supreme Court asking the government in early February to have the audio tapes authenticated by the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory and submit the report on March 24.
