BJP plans to invoke era of Congress 'misrule' in Manipur in Parliament: Report

The BJP is likely to attack the Congress record in the state under former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who was in power from 2002 to 2017.

Amid the boiling political furore over the ethnic violence in Manipur - especially with leaders from the I.N.D.I.A alliance demanding that any discussion on the issue in the Parliament begin with Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a statement - the BJP has devised a strategy to poke holes in the Opposition's allegations of mismanagement, by recalling instances of “callousness and mishandling” when the Congress was in power in the state and at the Centre, the Times of India reported.

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The publication reported that speakers from the treasury benches planned to remind the Congress of the "Naga-Kuki clashes which claimed 750 lives between 1993-1998 and led to the destruction of 350 villages". Sourced also told TOI that the “active phase” of violence had lasted for around "eight months", despite "sporadic killings" continuing till 1998.

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The government also plans to bring up the "inter-tribal conflict between Kukis and Paites between June 1997 and September 1998" that "resulted in 352 deaths and destruction of more than 50 villages, besides displacing 13,000 people". Some other instances that the government plans to invoke include "the Meitei-Pangal clash of May 1993 which left 100 dead, the Kuki-Tamil clashes in Moreh in 1995 which claimed nine lives and forced 9,000 of the 13,000 Tamil population" to pack their belongings and abandon the town for good.

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The BJP is also likely to attack the Congress record in the state under former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who was in power from 2002 to 2017, by pointing towards "the 1,728 reported cases of fake encounters” and "recurrent blockades", especially starting in 2010 and lasting until the last days of the CM's rule in 2017.

“The protests, which brought life to a standstill and sent prices of essential commodities soaring, ranged from 30 days to as many as 139 days during those years and yet failed to provoke any response from either the then PM (Manmohan Singh) or the UPA chief (Sonia Gandhi),” a source told the publication.

The saffron party is likely to argue that it reacted swiftly to the violence in the northeastern state by dispatching forces and ensuring that essential commodities reached Manipur via railways.