Amit Shah moves resolution on President’s Rule in Manipur at 2 am

The house passed the resolution by voice vote after a 40-minute discussion during which eight opposition lawmakers spoke and Shah responded.

Starting the discussion, Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said his party supported the President’s Rule in the strife-torn northeastern state, but it should be used to “restore peace and health” in the region. “Those responsible for maintaining law and order have not done their duty. No decisive action was taken for almost two years. It was imposed only when the CM (chief minister) resigned before the state assembly was set to reconvene. The Congress party had already prepared a no-confidence motion. They could not survive and so the President’s Rule was imposed,” Tharoor said, adding that while the Supreme Court judges have been to Manipur, the Prime Minister should also visit the state.

Tharoor said that around the 60,000 arms and over 6,00,000 pieces of ammunition were looted from armouries in the state. “Economic growth has suffered. Armed groups are running amok. There is no rule of law. We would like to see the President’s Rule as an opportunity to heal the state. The President’s Rule is necessary but not sufficient. No one should experience what people in Manipur have gone through,” he added.

Shah replied that in last four months there has been no major incident of violence. “We have brought this proclamation within two months of the President’s Rule being imposed in the state. Please come together, support this and restore peace in Manipur. The government is working to restore peace and heal the wounds.”

Shah denied the government had mishandled the ethnic clashes and said, “We acted promptly. The government airlifted security forces on the day the HC (high court) passed the order. The violence started in the aftermath of the HC order, which was interpreted differently by both groups. There was no delay.”

He also spoke about the ethnic clashes between different communities that Manipur has witnessed in the past. “I don’t want to compare the violence in your tenure or ours. In my view, there should not be a single incident. The narrative that the Centre failed in controlling the violence is wrong. There were clashes before too. It dragged on for 5-10 years. I only urge the opposition not to politicise the clashes. These are not terrorism or rioting, but ethnic clashes. When those clashes happened, the then home ministers did not go to the state,” he said, adding that of the 260 deaths in the state, at least 80% had died in the first one month.

Listing steps taken by the Centre under the President’s Rule, Shah said that representatives of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) have been meeting separately with both the groups and civil society meeting are being held. “Very soon, there will be a joint meeting. We are working to have such a joint meeting. The first step is to restore peace. By and large the situation is under control. In the last four months, two people were injured and there has been no violence. I won’t say it is satisfactory but it is under control. Until the day, the internally displaced people are in camps, there is no reason to be satisfied,” he added.

During the discussion, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) lawmaker Kanimozhi Karunanidhi objected to holding the discussion at 2 am. “The opposition has been raising the demand to have a discussion on Manipur but today is the day you have chosen after 2 o’clock in the middle of the night. How much regard do you have for the people suffering there?,” she said.

She spoke on crimes against women in Manipur and the recent violence that broke out during the Centre’s first attempt to restore interstate movement between the valley and hill districts.

“How did arms go to the hands of terrorists and protesters? There was blood shed even after the home minister promised free movement. 16 are critically injured, 103 are injured. If this is the state, what has President’s Rule done?” Kazhagam said.

Supriya Sule of the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar [NCP(SP)] called Shah an “assertive minister” who has “delivered superior results” in Kashmir. “But we are not very satisfied with what happened in Manipur. But I hope you do a strong intervention, bring in peace and have a fair election there,” Sule said.

The Centre had, on February 13, imposed President’s Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution in Manipur. This was done four days after chief minister Biren Singh’s resignation. The assembly has not been dissolved and is currently under suspended animation, which means that the assembly is not dissolved, and the legislators of Manipur continue to hold their positions as member of the legislative assembly (MLAs). This situation allows the party with a majority in the house to attempt to form a government in the existing assembly at a later stage.

Under Article 356, the proclamation of the President’s Rule must be approved by both houses of Parliament within two months.

CM Biren Singh had resigned on February 9 amid mounting discord and the threat of a no-confidence motion, with reports suggesting that up to 10-12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators were prepared to cross party lines during the scheduled assembly session on February 10. His party’s 10 other Kuki-Zo MLAs had already severed ties with Singh following the ethnic clashes and demanded his resignation. For four days after his resignation, Singh was asked to remain as caretaker chief minister, even as BJP leaders and the party’s northeast coordinator, Sambit Patra, held meetings with MLAs (those opposed to Singh) and unsuccessfully tried to garner the requisite numbers to form a government without Biren Singh as CM.