New Delhi : Amid a growing push for restoring the elected government in Manipur, which is under President’s Rule, BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh and BJP’s Northeast Coordinator Sambit Patra have reached Imphal for a crucial three-day visit.
According to party sources, the two leaders are likely to hold separate meetings with MLAs hailing from the hills and the valley, reflecting the BJP’s attempt to bridge the deep ethnic divide that has paralysed governance in the state for over a year. They are also scheduled to meet alliance partners, including the Naga People’s Front (NPF), to assess the political mood and explore a consensus on the next steps.
The two leaders are also expected to meet and engage with prominent intellectuals and opinion-makers from the state during their visit.
Sources suggest that if the separate meetings with party MLAs from hills and valley do take place, they are likely to be in different venues. For instance, the meeting with Kuki MLAs is slated to take place in Churachandpur district of Manipur.
The visit comes weeks after former chief minister N Biren Singh landed in Delhi with a group of MLAs to press for what he called the “early formation of a popular government”. The move had triggered talk within BJP circles that the central leadership was considering a political reset in the violence-scarred state.
While there has been no official word from the BJP yet, the flurry of meetings in Imphal and Delhi has fuelled speculation that a new government in Manipur could be in the works, possibly with a broader political accommodation to restore stability.
Manipur has been gripped by unrest since May 2023, when ethnic clashes erupted between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the hill-based Kuki-Zo tribes after a court order backed Meitei demands for Scheduled Tribe status. The violence, which led to hundreds of deaths and displaced over 70,000 people, has left the state sharply divided along ethnic lines. Despite heavy deployment of central forces, law and order remains fragile and normal political functioning has been largely paralysed for more than a year.
