New Delhi: In a desperate move to save the king, a chess player often has to sacrifice a pawn. This is what has happened in Manipur.
What has been unfolding in the state since February 3, ending with the resignation of the state chief minister N. Biren Singh on the evening of February 9, can only be explained as an extended gambit by the national leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party, to save the king.
The resignation was ostensibly a desperate move by the party’s top leadership in Delhi to sidestep the opposition Congress’s plan to move a no-confidence motion against the Biren Singh government when the assembly session would commence on February 10 (today). The BJP’s top leadership feared that the opposition’s motion would receive tacit support from several ruling party MLAs who have been seeking a change of guard since violence broke out in the state on May 3, 2023. New Delhi has been ignoring their demands thus far, driving this beleaguered group increasingly desperate for a change.
Fresh ammunition was added to the long-simmering rebellion within the ruling party in the form of a lab report on an audio tape purporting to be of Biren’s voice. The prestigious private laboratory, Truth Lab, said in a report to the Supreme Court on February 3 that Biren’s voice samples were a “93%” match to the voice in a leaked audio tape which brought his role in the ethnic violence in the state under scrutiny.
The violence has so far claimed at least 250 lives, and displaced over 70,000 people belonging to the Kuki and Meitei communities. The economy of the state is in shambles. Manipur has been virtually divided into two on sharp ethnic lines.
Last year, this audio tape was submitted to the Judicial Commission on Manipur Violence set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs by person/s whose anonymity was protected by the chairperson, former chief justice of the Guwahati high court, Justice Ajai Lamba. It was told to the Commission that the recording was from the chief minister’s residence sometime in 2023, when the state was in the thick of the ethnic conflict. A copy of it was also given to The Wire. Considering the immense significance of the content, The Wire had decided to bring it to the public domain.
Soon, Kuki Organisation for Human Rights (KOHUR) approached the Supreme Court seeking an independent inquiry into the audio recordings. A bench led by the then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud asked the petitioner to authenticate the voice scientifically and submit the report to the court. Truth Lab, set up under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, whose reports have been accepted by the apex court earlier, was roped in for the job. In late January, the lab certified that the voice in the audio tape and that of Biren Singh’s voice samples picked up from an official function matched “93%.”
This February 3, as sought by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the Supreme Court bench led by the new Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna granted the government three more weeks to get the tape authenticated once more – this time by the government’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL).
However, that Singh is on borrowed time was clear as the CFSL itself had on many occasions sought assistance from the Truth Lab to establish authenticity of audio-visual material.
Party MLAs, including some senior leaders, felt that they might finally be able to hoist a rebellion strong enough for New Delhi to take note of and act on it. An earlier plan hatched by some senior party leaders to bring a no-confidence motion against the Biren Singh government was activated with help from the Manipur Congress leadership. Yet more BJP leaders upset with Biren’s high-handedness shifted loyalties.
The move was not easy. In the last 21 months, Biren had, with the full backing of BJP’s top leadership, ensconced himself as the only ‘Meitei voice’ against the minority Kukis. He has also been playing the majoritarian card to the hilt. Biren had also allegedly roped in radical and banned groups of the Meitei community to form an armed mob which acted with impunity in the aftermath of the Union home ministry’s decision to lift Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in the valley areas. Media reports said those non-state actors were seen using Manipur Police vehicles too. Hundreds of arms and ammunition were also allowed to be looted by such mobs from the state armoury.
This coup of sorts by the mob and the non-state actors took place in the presence of Biren, who had full support from New Delhi, both inside and outside the parliament. That Union home minister Shah himself batted for him gave him added confidence. Those within and outside the party opposing Biren, and even police officials, were said to have been issued threats or assaulted by the armed groups. BJP leaders who questioned Biren ran the risk of their property being vandalised and set on flames. By instilling the fear for life and property, and with the backing of New Delhi, Biren continued to command support from the majority of his MLAs and those from the BJP’s allies.
However, this time around, the rebels appear to have been able to wean away some more party MLAs to ensure that Biren would have a difficult time in cobbling together the required figure of 31 to keep him on the seat. As soon as the rebels took the desperate step of offering tacit support to the Congress’ move in the coming assembly session, the central BJP leadership acted.
It also acted fast in order to keep the situation from going out of hand. Senior BJP leader Y. Khemchand was rushed to Delhi. News spread in Imphal that he was to have a closed-door meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah. Khemchand was passed a message from Shah by the state in-charge Sambit Patra. There was to be a leadership change.
On return to Imphal on February 7, Khemchand neither confirmed nor denied the national leadership’s plan to remove Biren. “No comments,” he told local media. But his cheery demeanour seemed to have given away that something was afoot. Reporters gave him the chase and found him not going to his own residence but to meet Speaker Thockchom Satyabrata Singh. A closed door meeting took place at the Speaker’s house along with some other party MLAs opposed to Biren Singh.
Sensing the buzz, Biren, along with a set of trusted MLAs, rushed to Delhi but sources in the state BJP told this correspondent that he “failed to get an audience with Shah.” Biren and his entourage then set off to attend the Kumbh Mela – perhaps to portray that he had little to worry about.
A clever politician, Biren knew he had to show his strength in numbers to the national leadership to be able to continue as the chief minister. He, therefore, bundled into Delhi 15 party MLAs supporting him, and another five MLAs belonging to the BJP’s ally Naga People’s Front (NPF). Biren also got an assurance from the five MLAs of another BJP ally, Nationalist People’s Party (NPP), they they would “stay neutral” in case a floor test takes place.
On February 9, when he was finally granted an appointment by Amit Shah in Delhi, party sources told The Wire that he took along with him those 15 BJP MLAs and the five NPF MLAs to fight his case. BJP’s national president J.P. Nadda was present too in the meeting. “But with no concrete proof that he has the numbers in place, the central leadership was not sure that Biren could keep the boat steady,” a source said. In just 15 minutes, it was decided that Biren would have to resign.
A dejected Biren returned to Imphal and on that very evening, went to Raj Bhawan to put in his papers to governor Ajay Bhalla. He was accompanied by Sambit Patra and state president Sharada Devi, among others.
Biren made a last-ditch effort to hold on to his image of a majoritarian politician who only batted for his community during the bloody ethnic conflict, and tried to tug at the heartstrings of the Meitei community. That he wanted a hero’s farewell is clear from his resignation letter. It remains to be seen how the sentiments stoked by this ‘son of the soil’ in the Meitei community influence Manipur’s politics. This is what happened in neighbouring Assam, after former chief minister Golap Borbora stoked that feeling among the Assamese community in the 1970s to protect his chair.
Power at any cost
In this cascade of political developments, what is most noteworthy is this – in the BJP of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah era, nothing moves if the party can somehow hold on to power. Accounts of sexual assault, loss of life, property and livelihood, mob looting arms from police stations and security forces looking with alarm at banned armed groups moving in police vehicles – all of this has scarcely made a dent.
That Biren could help BJP retain power was enough to keep him in the chief minister’s chair, however inefficient he might have been in running the state in the last 21 months. That his party’s government is safe was also a reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not bother visiting the violence-hit state, however much the people of Manipur clamoured. Modi didn’t even speak emphatically against the violence except when he was forced to utter a few lines after the horrifying video of two Kuki women being paraded naked went viral on social media.
A confirmation that Biren’s resignation was a desperate attempt by Modi-Shah to help the BJP government in Manipur survive ahead of the assembly session is also in the fact that Modi’s trusted man in Manipur, governor Ajay Bhalla, has revoked the order summoning the session from February 10 onwards. Clearly, Bhalla, who was the Modi government’s home secretary till August 2024, is stalling the opposition from making any attempt to still go ahead with the no-confidence motion and thereby gain political advantage against the ruling party.
Though Bhalla is now in control of the state, ensuring that the party’s government is safe for the time being, yet another significant move is awaited.
On March 24, when Solicitor General Tushar Mehta would have to submit the CFSL report on the audio tape to the Supreme Court, would the government still defend Biren like it did on February 3? Or would it throw him under the bus because the player has decided, once and for all, that the king has to be saved at any cost?
