Manipur Congress MP Dr Angomcha Bimol Akoijam on Sunday voiced strong condemnation over the manner in which all three Members of Parliament representing the state were denied the opportunity to speak during the passage of the President’s Rule proclamation in both houses of Parliament recently.
Congress MPs Angomcha Bimol Akoijam and Alfred Kanngam S Arthur represent Manipur in the Lok Sabha, while the BJP’s Leishemba Sanajaoba is a Rajya Sabha MP from Manipur.
The President’s Rule was imposed in ethnic violence-hit Manipur on February 13, just four days after N Biren Singh resigned as chief minister.
Speaking to the media at his Imphal residence on Sunday, Dr Akoijam alleged that he had requested the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to defer the discussion by a day, stating that a 2 am debate would be neither meaningful nor participatory.
“Late-night discussions cannot do justice to an issue as sensitive and serious as Manipur’s,” he said. However, despite the request, the discussion was held at 2 a.m. and wrapped up in just 40 minutes, with no opportunity given to Manipur’s MPs to speak. In the Rajya Sabha, MP Leishemba Sanajaoba was similarly denied a chance to voice his concerns, he said.
“Why were we not allowed to speak about our own state’s crisis? This is a fundamental question about parliamentary democracy,” Dr Akoijam questioned, while condemning the “deliberate silencing” of Manipur’s MPs.
He added that important concerns regarding the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreements and other critical issues were excluded from parliamentary records and left unanswered.
He said that only when the last displaced family is resettled will normalcy return to Manipur. More than 250 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups since May 2023.
Recently, the government asked people resorting to violence to give up arms, with hundreds of them obliging in order to reinstate peace in the state. However, Dr Akoijam disapproved of the disarmament policy, calling it “visibly partisan and community-specific”.
He also took aim at Union Home Minister Amit Shah, accusing him of downplaying the conflict by reducing it to an “inherent societal problem”. “Why has the Government failed to protect the lives and liberties of its citizens in Manipur?” Dr Akoijam asked.
