Suspension of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Manipur and imposition of President’s Rule showed how the Centre had failed the people of Manipur, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said. The Left parties also said such moves underlined the “utter bankruptcy” of the “double-engine government”.
Mr. Kharge, in a post on X on Friday (February 14, 2025) said the BJP was in power at the Centre for 11 years and in Manipur for eight years, and the responsibility of law and order in the State and national security and border patrol rested with the BJP. “Imposition of President’s Rule by you, suspending your own party’s government is a direct admission on how you failed the people of Manipur,” Mr. Kharge said. The President’s Rule, Mr. Kharge said, was forced by the constitutional crisis in the State, as none of the BJP’s own MLAs were willing to accept the baggage of BJP’s own “incompetence”, while adding, “Your ‘Double Engine’ ran over the lives of the innocent people of Manipur!” He urged the government to step in and listen to the pain and trauma of the suffering people. He also demanded that the government issue an apology.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Polit Bureau, in a statement on Friday (February 14, 2025) said the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur underlined “the utter bankruptcy of the BJP double-engine government” that had left the State in violent turmoil for two years. “President’s Rule has been imposed not in the interests of Manipur but to buy time to settle the internal conflicts within the ruling coalition,” the party said.
Chief Minister and BJP leader N, Biren Singh, the CPI(M) said, was forced to resign because his “partisan role” was under examination by a court where “evidence was presented of his sectarian partisan role”. The party said that as strife continued in the State, the Centre refused to take required action, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not even visit the troubled State. “This exposes the sectarian approach of the ruling party and the State and Central governments it heads, which put its own political interests above that of the State and its people,” the party said.
The CPI(M) said that President’s Rule was not the solution and the Central government cannot escape its responsibility.
CPI general secretary D. Raja said it was telling that the Prime Minister, while the crisis raged, failed to visit the State even once. “He is out of the country when this crucial decision was announced. BJP’s hollow claims on national security stand exposed in the failure of the Prime Minister, Home Minister and the BJP Government of Manipur in mismanaging a strategically sensitive state like Manipur,” he wrote in a post on X on Friday.
