The rebellion within the BJP and the NDA in Manipur after the passage of a resolution at the meeting of the ruling front’s legislators this week points to increasing alienation of chief minister N. Birendra Singh among his own folks and the untenability of his continuance in office.
Reports say the resolution calls for “mass operations against Kuki militants responsible for” the November 11 abduction and killings in Jiribam. Such a resolution militates against the very idea of democratic governance and even the oath the chief minister and other constitutional functionaries took while entering office: They have pledged to act “without fear or favour and affection or ill-will.” Instead of viewing a horrendous crime as such and initiate legal proceedings against its perpetrators, the resolution seeks to cast a community as being responsible for it. The chief minister and his advisers have prescribed a remedy that is sure to worsen the disease rather than cure it.
This is not the first time the CM is being accused of acting in a partisan manner; this has been the complaint against him since the very beginning of the sectarian strife. The Kuki community has always held that Mr Singh is running an administration which discriminates against them and favours the Meitei community to which he himself belongs.
The resolution also has a part that seems nothing short of blackmail as it says if the action is “not implemented within the specified period, the NDA legislators will decide the future course of action in consultation with the people of the state”. This is directed against the Union government and the NDA leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah who have been propping up a discredited state administration despite the mayhem it presided over for the last one-and-a-half years.
Mr Singh has exhausted all the weapons in his arsenal and is trying to drive a wedge even among his supporters and proponents. The Kuki MLAs from the BJP have already expressed their disagreement with the plan of the CM and have made it clear that the operation, if at all it is launched, must be conducted “all over the state to recover all illegal arms from all militia groups”.
It may be remembered that the Meitei community had stood solidly behind the chief minister until recently when the violence spread to more areas of the state, threatening peaceful life of all residents of the state. The homes of ruling party legislators and even the kin of the chief minister came under attack. Protesters of the community now demand that there must be a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The Frankenstein of communal strife the chief minister had let loose on his own people is now aggressively looking at its own creator and mentor, and the man is running helter-skelter. While doing so, he is employing every option at his command, even if they go against his own party, community and the oath he has taken. It’s high time the Union government stopped watching the events as a silent spectator and intervened instead.
