New Delhi: The National People’s Party’s (NPP) choice to withdraw from the N. Biren Singh administration comes amid renewed violence in Manipur, yet a significant portion of the party had been urging its president to make this decision for over a year.
While revealing the NPP’s departure to BJP national president J.P. Nadda on Sunday, NPP president Conrad Sangma emphasized that the government “under the leadership of Shri Biren Singh has utterly failed to address the crisis and restore normalcy” in Manipur.
The conflict in Manipur has been ongoing for more than 18 months.
Sources informed ThePrint that Conrad Sangma, also the chief minister of Meghalaya, has contemplated this decision but has delayed it due to an internal disagreement about the NPP’s association with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Until recently, five of the seven MLAs in the NPP’s Manipur unit preferred to stay within the BJP-led governing coalition.
However, some members of the party have been advocating for severing ties with the BJP, particularly after the NPP lost its foothold in its home state of Meghalaya during the Lok Sabha elections, making its aspirations to become a key political force in the Northeast seem increasingly distant.
National People’s Party vice-president Yumnam Joykumar Singh, who was the Manipur deputy CM in the first Biren Singh Cabinet from 2017 to 2022, has voiced significant criticism of the way the situation in Manipur has been managed.
In an interview with ThePrint on Monday, he stated that the “BJP leadership showed no interest in listening to the NPP” regarding potential resolutions for the conflict that has taken over 250 lives and displaced thousands.
“Biren Singh didn’t even extend an invitation to the NPP for the initial all-party meeting held after the conflict erupted in May 2023. Despite being part of the ruling coalition, we were excluded from this meeting. Over time, the government began to be viewed as biased towards the Meitei community. It ceased to function as a government for everyone,” Joykumar, who served as the director general of police in Manipur from 2007-2012, remarked.
The National People’s Party possesses seven seats in the 60-member assembly of Manipur.
Even with the NPP’s exit, the BJP maintains its majority in Manipur, holding 37 legislators along with additional backing from the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and Janata Dal (United). Earlier this year, the Kuki People’s Alliance (KPA) had also withdrawn its support, raising similar concerns to those of the NPP regarding the ongoing violence in the region.
In Meghalaya, the NPP, with 31 MLAs, leads the governing coalition, which includes two BJP MLAs. In Nagaland, the NPP has five MLAs and remains part of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP)-led ruling coalition. Five NPP MLAs also participate in the BJP-led governing coalition in Arunachal Pradesh.
The LS elections were a setback, but the decision took time to finalize.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the NPP faced a setback, losing the two seats it contested in Meghalaya—one to Congress and the other to the Voice of the People Party (VPP). In Nagaland, the NDPP was defeated by Congress, which also secured both Lok Sabha seats in Manipur.
The election results reinforced what NPP leaders like Joykumar had been advocating for Conrad Sangma to execute—cut ties with the BJP.
Comments made by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma indicating that the BJP suffered in the Lok Sabha elections due to a “specific community,” seemingly in reference to Christians, increased the tension within the NPP towards the BJP.
However, with five of the seven NPP MLAs in Manipur preferring to continue in the Biren Singh government, Sangma hesitated.
Despite Sangma asserting in a July interview with ThePrint that the NPP’s “alignment” with certain political groups along with anti-incumbency might have contributed to its defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, he also dismissed the possibility of a pre-poll alliance between the NPP and the BJP in the future.
On September 27, Sangma convened a meeting with NPP MLAs and party officials in Guwahati to gather their opinions on the party’s relationship with the BJP. Just two days later, five NPP MLAs from Manipur sent a letter to Sangma, complaining about Joykumar’s threat to leave the Biren Singh government “without consulting the NPP MLAs.”
In the previous month, Sangma had arranged for a meeting of the NPP’s national executive in New Delhi for October 5, but he postponed it two days prior.
On October 9, the rift widened further as five NPP MLAs from Manipur did not attend the party’s state executive committee meeting, while the remaining two MLAs sent letters citing medical issues as the reason for their absence.
“The MLAs had their motivations for wanting to remain in the ruling coalition. These motivations were financial—the ruling coalition enables individuals to profit from government contracts. However, once the ruling coalition’s MLAs faced scrutiny, they became hesitant. This presented Conrad Sangma with the chance to initiate the exit,” a senior NPP leader explained to The Print.
‘Requested BJP to introduce neutral CM candidate’
Joykumar mentioned that the NPP had urged the BJP leadership multiple times to replace Biren Singh with a “neutral” Chief Minister.
“When we referred to this, we did not necessarily imply President’s rule. We meant someone who would be acceptable to all communities should assume the CM position. Under Biren Singh’s leadership, even the Manipur Police was perceived as pro-Meitei,” he stated.
Joykumar also criticized the Chief Minister, alleging that he was responsible for the “private militia Arambai Tenggol.”
“The police armaments should never have been looted by Arambai,” he remarked.
He further expressed that only the central government could have curtailed the influx of illegal immigrants from Myanmar.
“India has geopolitical interests that lead it to support the pro-democracy movements in Myanmar. However, it should have been clarified that these individuals (from Myanmar) can seek refuge only if they do not create disturbances on our side of the border. The central government has not taken any measures in this regard,” he asserted.
