Manipur CM Biren Singh tenders resignation hours after meeting Amit Shah in Delhi

Singh was accompanied by 14 MLAs belonging to the BJP and NPF. State BJP president A Sharda and senior saffron party leader Sambit Patra was also part of the delegation.

Guwahati: Nongthombam Biren Singh resigned as Manipur Chief Minister on Sunday evening, hours after his meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.

This brings the curtains down on Singh's tenure as chief minister. He was elected as the chief minister in 2017, when BJP formed its first government, wrestling power from Congress.

After landing at Imphal from New Delhi, Singh, 64, went straight to Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation to Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla.

Singh's resignation comes a day before the commencement of the Assembly session in which Congress was planning to move a no-confidence motion against his government.

In his resignation letter, Singh thanked the Centre for "Timely action, intervention, developmental work and implementation of various projects for safeguarding the interest of every single Manipuri."

Singh also put forth five points and requested the Centre to implement those.

Those included: To maintain the territorial integrity of Manipur, which has a rich and diverse civilisational history over thousands of years, to crackdown on border infiltration and to formulate policy for the deportation of the illegal immigrants, to continue the fight against drugs and narco-terrorism, stringent and foolproof revised mechaims of free movement regime with the biometrics being stringgently applied and time bound and faster fencing of the Indo-Myanmar border.

On Sunday morning, Singh rushed to New Delhi after at least nine MLAs skipped a meeting called by him at Imphal on Saturday. BJP has 37 MLAs in the House of 60 but seven Kuki MLAs belonging to the party have maintained distance.

This, according to sources reduced the number in favour of Biren to 21, way below of the majority mark.

In November, BJP's biggest ally National People's Party had withdrawn support alleging that Biren Singh failed to control the Meitei-Kuki conflict that has kept Manipur on the boil since May 2023. More than 260 people have died and over 60,000 others displaced due to the conflict.

The conflict triggered the demand for Biren's resignation but the BJP continued to support him as he is still considered as the strongest face among the majority Meitei community.

There are reports that the Centre imposed Presidents's Rule in Manipur but the same is yet to be officially announced.