New Delhi: At a press conference held at the All India Congress Committee (AICC)’s headquarters in New Delhi, the Congress demanded the resignation of Union home minister Amit Shah, citing his failure to stop the ongoing violence in Manipur, as well as the resignation of Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh.
The press meet on Tuesday (November 19) was addressed by the Congress’s Manipur president Meghachandra, its general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh and its Manipur in-charge Girish Chodankar.
Addressing the media, Keisham Meghachandra recalled a statement Prime Minister Narendra Modi made in 2017, in which he said that “those who cannot ensure peace in the state have no right to govern Manipur”.
Meghachandra asked whether this principle applied to the current ‘double-engine’ government in Manipur.
A state in distress
Violence escalated in Jiribam, a new hotspot of the Manipur violence, where ten people apparently from the Kuki-Zo community were killed in a gunfight with security forces last week. The Manipur police identified them as armed militants.
Jiribam shares its boundary with Assam’s Cachar district. On the day the ten Kuki-Zo individuals were killed, six people reportedly from the Meitei community went missing – some alleged they were abducted by militants. Within the last week, it has been reported that five of their bodies have been found, with a sixth one possibly belonging to the group also discovered.
Figures provided by the AICC said that over 300 people were killed in the Manipur violence and “nearly a lakh” people rendered displaced. The Wire could not independently corroborate these figures. The state government has claimed that 226 people died in the violence and close to 60,000 were displaced.
Retail inflation in the state has hit 10%, the AICC claimed, adding to say that “business are closed down, jobs are getting lost”, “essential food items, medicines [and] essential commodities are in scarcity” and that schools and educational institutes were shut.
Meghachandra also spoke of the situation in Jiribam, saying, “Sisters, brothers, even babies are unsafe. Mobs are attacking politicians, including Congress MLAs. This is a direct result of poor administration.”
Party announces five demands of the government
In its press conference, the Congress laid out a five-point charter of demands. First, it insisted Modi visit the state before the next parliamentary session – the winter session will begin on November 25 – meet relief camp residents and consult local leaders.
Second, the Congress demanded that Modi engage with delegates from all parties, including the BJP and the Congress, as the homes of legislators from both parties were being targeted in the state.
Third, it demanded that a new governor be appointed specifically for the state. Former governor Anusuiya Uikey left office in July and Assam governor Laksman Acharya currently bears additional charge as governor of Manipur.
Fourth, the party called for accountability from Shah, questioning the alleged “jugalbandi” between him and Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh. It also alleged favouritism on Shah and Singh’s part as well as a failure to prosecute drug-related cases.
Its fifth demand was immediate action on the Supreme Court’s concerns relating to the state. The party cited an observation by the apex court last year that the constitutional machinery in the state had collapsed.
‘Prime minister has done nothing but protect Biren Singh’
Chodankar, the Congress in-charge for Manipur, accused the BJP of prioritising the chief minister’s political survival over the state’s welfare.
“For the past 18 months, the prime minister has done nothing but protect the chief minister of Manipur,” Chodankar said.
The Congress said it was committed to restoring peace in Manipur. “We tried every possible way to bring stability, but this government has failed. The prime minister must respond immediately,” Chodankar added.
At least twenty people have been killed in a spike in the violence in Manipur just this month, as per some estimates.
Shah last year promised compensation to the kin of those who lost their lives to the violence. The Union home ministry has not disbursed enough money that would cover all 226 people officially estimated to have lost their lives.
After tensions in the Imphal valley over the six people who went missing from Jiribam escalated into violence last week, the authorities imposed an indefinite curfew across multiple districts of the valley and curbed internet services in these districts as well as two Kuki-Zo-dominated hill districts to curb the unrest.
The ethnic violence in the state erupted in May last year, following which segregation between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zos reached near-complete levels. The two communities are physically separated by buffer zones patrolled by security forces.
