NPP exits Manipur govt over violence; no threat to Biren ministry

The National People's Party on Sunday withdrew support from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in violence-hit Manipur, claiming that the N Biren Singh dispensation has "completely failed to resolve the crisis and restore normalcy" in the northeastern state.

IMAGE: A deserted view of a road during a curfew following the recent violence, in Imphal West,November 17, 2024.Photograph: ANI Photo

The NPP currently has 7 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly, and the withdrawal of support will not affect the stability of the government as the BJP enjoys absolute majority in the House with its 32 legislators.

The saffron camp has also support of five MLAs of the Naga People's Front and 6 Janata Dal-United legislators.

In the last few days, the situation in Manipur further deteriorated and many more innocent lives have been lost and people in the state are "going through immense suffering", the NPP claimed in a letter to BJP president J P Nadda.

The fresh incidents of violent protests took place on Saturday night even as an indefinite curfew was clamped after people, agitated by the killing of three women and three children by militants in Jiribam district, attacked the residences of three state ministers and six MLAs earlier on November 16.

Mobs set fire to the residences of three more BJP legislators, one of whom is a senior minister, and a Congress MLA in various districts of Imphal Valley even as security forces foiled the attempt of agitators to storm the ancestral residence of CM N Biren Singh, officials said.

"We strongly feel that the Manipur state government under the leadership of Shri Biren Singh has completely failed to resolve the crisis and restore normalcy.

"Keeping the current situation in mind, the National People's Party has decided to withdraw its support to the Biren Singh government in state of Manipur with immediate effect," the letter said.

Notably, the Kuki People's Alliance (KPA), a political party formed ahead of the 2022 Manipur election, had earlier withdrawn support from the BJP-led government in the state in view of ethnic violence.

The Congress currently has five MLAs, and there are three independent in the House.

More than 200 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kukis in Manipur since May last year.