The people of Manipur voted out the BJP and its ally, the Naga People’s Front, from the Inner and Outer Manipur constituencies, respectively, leading to comfortable victories for the Congress candidates in these seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which was held in the backdrop of the ongoing ethnic conflict between the Valley-based Meiteis and Hills-based Scheduled Tribe Kuki-Zo people.
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The Congress’s Alfred Kanngam Arthur won the Outer Manipur (ST) seat by a margin of over 83,000 votes. The party’s choice of fielding Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor A. Bimol Akoijam in the Inner Manipur seat paid-off handsomely, with Mr. Akoijam beating the BJP’s Th. Basantakumar Singh, a State Minister, with a margin of over 1.09 lakh votes.
While the Inner Manipur seat is dominated by voters from the Meitei community and comprises most of the valley districts of the State, the Outer Manipur seat is largely dominated by the Kuki-Zo tribal communities and the Naga tribes with some valley districts also coming under the seat.
Following the results, apex bodies of Kuki-Zo tribes and civil society organisations like the Zo United and the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) called it a “positive” outcome.
Conflict and campaign strategy
Manipur voted in the first two phases of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with all contesting parties being forced to address the ethnic conflict, which has so far killed over 220 people, including security personnel, injured thousands of others, and internally displaced over 50,000 people, for whom special polling booths were also set up in relief camps.
During campaigning in Inner Manipur, the BJP was caught between promising restoration of peace as a priority while also trying to find ways to position the N. Biren Singh government’s handling of the conflict positively.
Mr. Akoijam’s campaign, on the other hand, focused mainly on seeking accountability from the BJP governments at the Centre and in the State for failing to control the conflict and for being unnecessarily soft on Kuki-Zo separatist groups that were under the Suspension of Operation agreement with the government.
Meanwhile, in Outer Manipur, this election saw no Kuki-Zo candidate contesting owing to a resolution passed by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, asking the community to refrain from standing in the elections. As a result, the seat saw a direct contest between Mr. Arthur and the NPF’s Timothy Zimik – both from the Naga community.
Despite having won over 33% of the vote share in Outer Manipur in 2019, the BJP chose not to contest the seat this year, announcing a pre-poll alliance with the NPF instead.
While the Congress tried to build a platform of tribal solidarity to gain the trust of Kuki-Zo voters, the NPF focused on finding familial ties with the community to gain their support.
While the voter turnout in both constituencies stood at over 70%, 17 polling stations across both constituencies had to be re-polled because of incidents of booth capturing, voter intimidation, and violence. Both Congress candidates had received threats to their lives during campaigning and Mr. Arthur was also attacked in his campaign run.
In a statement issued on Tuesday night, the Zo United thanked all apex tribe bodies for keeping with their resolution to consolidate their community’s vote, with some other leaders crediting this consolidation for the Congress’s return to power on the seat that was taken from them by the NPF in 2019.
Further, Muan Tombing, general secretary of the ITLF told The Hindu, “This shows that public interest is with secularism and safeguarding interests of the tribals and our rights.”
