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3 Oppn MPs walk out of parliamentary panel meet, say let’s discuss Manipur first
Some MPs had also written to the parliamentary standing committee chairman last month to request an early discussion on the Manipur situation
NEW DELHI: Three Opposition lawmakers on Thursday walked out of a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs after their demand to discuss the Manipur situation was declined.
Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Pradip Bhattacharya and Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien — all three from the Rajya Sabha — left the meeting ten minutes after it started. The three leaders had demanded that the committee hold an urgent discussion on the Manipur situation before the scheduled topic, the condition of prisons, is taken up.
In a letter to the standing committee’s chairman Brij Lal later, O’Brien underlined the need to discuss the situation in the state which has been in a “serious crisis”.
Manipur needs healing and an end to violence and the MPs, as elected representatives, cannot look away, O’Brien said. “Having been a senior police officer yourself, you understand the gravity of the situation in the state,” the Trinamool Congress MP said.
The letter recalled that some MPs also wrote to the chairman last month to seek an urgent meeting to discuss Manipur and underlined that it was the chairman’s prerogative to fix the agenda of the meeting.
A senior Opposition leader said that non-NDA parties might continue to boycott the panel meeting on Friday if the Manipur situation is not discussed. Another leader pointed out at the coordination between the Congress and Trinamool leaders underscored that the Opposition was united on key issues.
According to officials, Digvijaya Singh wrote to Brij Lal last month about the grave situation in the border state where more than 100 people have died and more than 50,000 people had to be shifted to relief camps. Singh’s letter also mentioned that more than 250 churches and 100 temples have been destroyed and 2,000 houses have been set on fire in the violence which had taken a communal turn.
He too, asked that the discussion on prison conditions can take place later and Manipur should be discussed at the earliest.
Ethnic clashes have engulfed Manipur since early May, leading to widespread deaths, injuries and displacement. The state’s fault lines were exposed in the first week of May after a rally by a tribal Kuki group to protest against a court-ordered move to consider the inclusion of the dominant and politically stronger Meitei community to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list sparked a wave of violence between the two communities.
The Supreme Court has asked the Manipur government to submit an updated status report on the ethnic clashes in the state by July 10 between the Meitei and Kuki communities, which have resulted in numerous deaths, injuries, and displacements.
