GUWAHATI: When N Biren Singh resigned from the post of the chief minister on Sunday evening, it raised a question — why now?
The conflict
Many say BJP’s central leadership was aware of the division among its legislators in Manipur over Biren Singh’s leadership and wanted to avoid the no-trust motion which Congress was planning to bring in the assembly session, which was supposed to begin on Monday before it was declared null and void by governor AK Bhalla shortly.
BJP and allies together have 45 MLAs in the house of 60 and there was no way a no-confidence motion against the govt would have sailed through. But of the 37 BJP MLAs, there are seven Kukis, who would have abstained. Of the remaining 30, Biren no longer enjoys the support of all of them and BJP central leaders did not want any kind of embarrassment in the event of voting on the opposition motion.
This is the first time opposition was talking about bringing a floor test for the NDA govt in the state.
The first signs of fissures within the BJP legislature party came to the fore last Nov when 19, including the seven Kuki legislators, skipped a meeting called by Biren Singh to discuss the law and order situation in the state.
Also in Nov last year, BJP’s biggest ally in the state, Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party (NPP) withdrew support to the govt last alleging that the govt had “completely failed to resolve the crisis and restore normalcy” in the violence-ravaged state. Sangma went a step forward saying his party will review this decision if there is a change in the leadership.
Many others point to an audio tape leak containing offensive remarks against a community purportedly in Biren Singh’s voice which was circulated on social media in Aug last year.
The Supreme Court on Feb 3 sought the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory on the examination of these audio tapes which allegedly recorded the statements to Biren Singh suggesting his involvement in the state’s ethnic violence.
The Manipur govt came out with statements twice — on Aug 8 and 20 last year — stating the audio clip as “doctored” and its circulation on social media as “a malicious attempt by certain sections to incite communal violence or derail the process of peace that has been initiated at multiple levels.”
The govt said an FIR has been registered in the cyber police station on the doctored audio clip and it views such acts of “misinformation and disinformation through doctored clips as anti-national activities.”
