Lok Sabha discusses Manipur post 2 am, Shah says situation under control, not satisfactory
In an unprecedented development, the Lok Sabha took up a discussion on the Manipur situation in the wee hours of Thursday after the House had sat for over 14 hours to discuss and pass the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025.
Soon after the Waqf Bill cleared, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced a new item for discussion “Adoption of statutory Resolution confirming the imposition of President's Rule in Manipur.”
While Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had left for the day by the time the Manipur resolution was taken up, DMK's K Kanimozhi, TMC's Sayoni Ghosh and Shiv Sena UBT's Arvind Sawant stayed back and participated in discussions.
They slammed the government for choosing an unexpected hour of the day to discuss a serious issue.
“This shows how much you care to not care,” Kanimozhi said, lamenting the listing of the matter in wee hours of Thursday despite the fact that the opposition had been demanding a debate on Manipur for days.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh remained in attendance during the one-hour discussion before the house adopted the resolution and adjourned for the day at 3 am.
Shah, while responding to the discussion, said the situation in Manipur was under control but not satisfactory and the government was hopeful of bringing the warring ethnic groups to the dialogue table soon.
Appealing to the House to not politicise Manipur violence, Shah recounted past three spells of violence in the state, including the Naga Kuki strife between 1993 and 1998, which claimed over 700 lives and two other clashes that lasted three years and six months respectively.
“A narrative has been created as if the BJP government in Manipur failed whereas past clashes have lasted much longer and caused greater loss of life and property. I am not condoning violence that happened in Manipur under our rule. Violence should never happen but we should nor politicise it,” said Shah, adding that N Biren Singh himself resigned as CM following which the cabinet recommended President's Rule in the state after parties expressed inability to form the government there.
The Home Minister added that before BJP came to power Manipur saw 212 days of blockade on an average every year for five years.
“Under our rule there was no blockade. An unfortunate high court decision regarding reservation was adversely interpreted by two ethic communities of the state and this triggered a spiral of violence which we moved immediately to control,” said Shah, adding that Congress never had the number of lawmakers needed to bring a no confidence motion against the BJP government in the state.
Shah also said that two separate rounds of talks, each with Kukis and Meiteis, had been held already and soon both sides would be engaged by Home Ministry officials.
“Efforts are on to restore peace. The situation is in control. There has been no death in the last four months. I won't say the situation is satisfactory. How can we call the situation satisfactory till the time people ate displaced and are residing in camps?”, he said after the Opposition flagged 260 deaths and over 67,000 displacements in Manipur which is yet to return to normal after the spiral of violence engulfed the northeastern state in 2023 subsiding much later.
Manipur was placed under President's Rule on February 13.
