Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty 
New Delhi: Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continuing silence on Manipur, as the latter paid a visit to Assam on Sunday, January 4. It was Modi’s first visit to Northeast India since ethnic conflict broke out in Manipur on May 3 last year.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Khera conveyed to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that if Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma couldn’t organise a chopper for Modi to travel to Imphal from Guwahati, the Congress party could book a ticket for him on a commercial flight. Along with the comment, Khera appended a screenshot of flight options available from Guwahati to Imphal, which show a flight ticket costs as low as Rs 3,000. Khera’s X post attracted 53k views when this copy was being written.
As expected, Modi, during the one-and-a-half day visit to Assam, remained silent on Manipur – even though the ethnic conflict in that northeastern state has now taken a fierce turn along India’s border areas with a beleaguered Myanmar. Within Manipur, the state is witness to something unseen till now – it is virtually split into two on ethnic lines. Be it the Kuki or Meitei ethnic community, the areas each lay a claim to are being virulently guarded with gun power by non-state actors while security forces, most times, are mere spectators to the goings-on.
Modi’s silence on the ongoing Manipur violence which has thus far rendered thousands homeless and killed many an innocent is particularly being questioned by the Opposition for shielding N. Biren Singh, a chief minister hand-picked by him and his deputy, the home minister Amit Shah. Shah had also gone to the extent of supporting Singh while placing a statement in parliament on the Manipur violence.
For the last nine months, Prime Minister Modi, while stridently backing Biren Singh, has also disregarded the call from common citizens belonging to both the warring communities of Manipur to visit the state at least once. Members of the civil society have underlined to visiting media persons that Manipur is also a BJP-ruled state where Modi’s party had formed a government on its own for the first time after the last assembly polls.
Yet, Modi, be it the Prime Minister or the BJP’s poll face, has continued his silence – evoking in some the memory of Modi as the Gujarat chief minister naming the then prime minister Manmohan Singh as “Maun (silent) Mohan Singh” for allegedly maintaining silence on issues that concern the public.
Since this past February 3-4, Modi travelled to Assam instead of Manipur, the message he sent out is – once again – loud and clear. The essence of that message is this:
Focus is not on delivering good governance
The recent Assam visit of Modi stridently drives home the point that he has been calculatingly avoiding a visit to Manipur.
What comes across from that deliberate avoidance is also that his focus is less on ensuring good governance by a BJP-run state government and more on pocketing a win in an election. This explanation sits perfectly when you bear in mind that he went campaigning in Manipur during the last assembly polls but was nowhere to be seen when many of those who might have voted for his party lost either their lives or property or livelihood or all of it.
A screengrab from a video purportedly showing violence in Manipur on the night of May 3.
The election-centric design of state visits of Modi resonated flawlessly his planned trip to Mizoram during the assembly polls this October while continuing to avoid Manipur next door.
Ultimately, sensing that the majority Mizo community who share a kinship with the Kukis of Manipur would not be very welcoming of the PM for taking out time to campaign for his party while their relatives in Manipur were clamouring for his attention, Modi cancelled his trip. A rare occasion when Modi doesn’t even skip a civic poll to campaign for his party.
Also read: Modi Gives Mizoram Election Rally a Miss. Is Manipur Mayhem the Reason?
Good governance, or oft-used terms like ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ by party leaders are what the BJP may claim to deliver in election manifestoes. Modi’s vanishing act on Manipur, and the full-fledged backing of the chief minister by New Delhi whom a large swathe of people in the state blame for a deteriorating law and order situation, had held up that such poll promises in a BJP state can remain only on paper – even after a decisive win.
Banking on Assam Lok Sabha seats for 2024
What is clear from Modi’s Assam visit peppered with announcements of big-ticket infrastructure projects is that his party is heavily banking on the 14 Lok Sabha seats of Assam in 2024. In 2019, BJP had pocketed nine of them. The reading from the Modi visit projected by his party as a grand affair only conveys that the target given to the party’s state unit for the crucial 2024 polls is for a better outcome than that of 2019.
Coinciding with Modi’s visit, Opposition parties and civil society organisations held meetings to protest his government’s decision to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Assam. The immediate trigger was BJP MP from West Bengal, Shantanu Thakur, claiming to reporters last week that CAA would be implemented in a week’s time. Thakur belongs to the Bengali Matua community which would be most benefitted in East India if CAA is implemented. Curiously though, when Modi was on his Assam visit, Thakur told The Telegraph that it was a “slip of tongue”.
Also read: ‘Slip of Tongue,’ Says BJP MP Who Promised CAA in 7 Days
If in the coming times, CAA is implemented in Assam, a section of Modi voters in the state might be in a quandary, particularly those who vote for its regional allies. Therefore, the message that the party wants to vociferously send out to the state’s majority Assamese community and the other tribal ethnic groups through the Modi visit is that the “development of Northeast under Modi” continues, and the largest pie of it would go to Assam. Assam, anyway, has the largest chunk of Lok Sabha seats in the region.
Manipur left to the state administration
Since election is what the Modi-era BJP is hooked to, it makes absolute sense then to leave Manipur to chief minister Biren Singh to wrestle with. Anyway, the state has only two Lok Sabha seats – one in the tribal areas and the other comprises of the Meitei-dominated valley districts.
The pressure on Biren Singh would be to deliver the Inner Manipur seat to the BJP which could be much easier for him to pull off than the Outer Manipur seat. If by chance, the Kukis, upset with the Modi government, go on to boycott the 2024 elections, the Outer Manipur seat could be a cakewalk for the Naga People’s Front (NPF). Since NPF is a National Democratic Alliance ally, the BJP could end up controlling both the Lok Sabha seats. There is no need for Modi to visit Manipur then.
Sense of alienation
In his public speech in Assam this past February 4, Modi might have made the tall claim of having brought ‘peace’ to the Northeast, but if you take into account some of the recent occurrences across the region including the Manipur conflict, what comes across is a steady loss of air from the balloon that Modi and the BJP had blown in the last nine years to claim that the Northeast under them is peaceful.
Be it the fresh anti-CAA public protests in Assam, the continued public anger across Manipur against Modi’s absence from the state, or the recent disappointment in Mizoram about the Prime Minister going ahead with electioneering when their backyard was under severe turbulence, the message from a wide section of the public from the region is increasingly getting clearer – Modi cares only if there is an election looming.
Visiting Assam instead of Manipur this February 3-4, Modi only proved their point.