This opinion was first published on news18.com | JULY 27, 2023
Now that a no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government has been admitted for debate by Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, the stage is set for a high-stakes debate between the government and Opposition benches on the Manipur question.
The public vitriol in Delhi has so far been focused on the question of whether a debate on Manipur should have been preceded by a prior statement by the Prime Minister on the floor of the House or not – as evidenced by the public exchange of letters between Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge. That demand, which the Congress and Opposition parties have insisted on, led to the no-confidence motion being a clever go-around to force the issue.
With the BJP-led state government of N Biren Singh eliciting little confidence in its ability to calm the ground situation so far, allegations of bias by Kuki groups and the Union Home Ministry being directly involved in the security operations, the Opposition feels it has the ammunition to put the government on the defensive. The Modi government, on the other hand, will be looking to turn the tables as the battle lines are being drawn for Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Maintaining public order is a core requirement of the State. In that sense, the government’s response and the semantics of this debate matter. Yet, beyond the optics, Manipur is too serious a matter to be left to politics as usual or small brownie points that either side hope to gain from this debate.
Read full opinion on news18.com
This opinion was first published on news18.com | JULY 27, 2023.
