The Manipur Peoples' Party (MPP) on Thursday criticised the three-day visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Manipur, stating that it was meaningless in terms of restoring normalcy to the state.
Speaking to the media at the office of MPP in Imphal, its general secretary (administration) Longjam Joykumar expressed his discontent with the Union home minister's statement, which attributed the ongoing unrest to a premature judgment by the High Court of Manipur regarding the enlistment of Meetei in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list.
The general secretary questioned the reasoning behind the unrest being limited to only three hill districts out of the 10 districts occupied by the ST population.
Maintaining that if the issue was genuinely related to the ST demand, he questioned "Why did the unrest not occur in the remaining ST districts?"
He also expressed disappointment that the union home minister failed to acknowledge the ground reality despite visiting various stakeholders.
Furthermore, Joykumar highlighted the alleged collaboration between Myanmar-based militants and Kuki militants in their demand for a homeland and said that the ministers and the MLA seems to have been unable to provide a clear picture of the agenda behind the ongoing unrest to Amit Shah during his visit.
While the general secretary welcomed Amit Shah's visit with hopes of restoring normalcy, he strongly criticised the connection made between the ST demand and the crisis, considering it condemnable.
Lambasting the BJP, he said that despite their claims of a "double engine government," it seemed that the double engine was defunct in addressing the situation in Manipur.
He called upon both the central and state governments to take all necessary steps promptly to restore normalcy in the state.
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