GUWAHATI: Hours before news of President’s rule in Manipur broke Thursday, caretaker chief minister Biren Singh addressed an open letter on X to “Indigenous Friends” underscoring how his battle against illegal immigrants from Myanmar was stopped by ethnic conflict that erupted on May 3, 2023.
“Our land and identity are under threat. With a small population and limited resources, we stand vulnerable. I monitored and detected illegal immigration tirelessly until May 2, 2023. But after the tragic events of May 3, 2023 our state machinery has struggled to respond effectively,” Biren wrote.
Biren had gone into silence since resigning Sunday even as BJP struggled to come out of the leadership crisis left behind his move. Governor AK Bhalla had accepted Biren’s resignation but asked him to stay on as caretaker CM. Earlier on Thursday, Biren’s women supporters took to streets in Imphal East demanding BJP’s central leadership reinstate him.
In his letter, Biren pointed out that the state’s unguarded 398km border with Myanmar and Free Movement Regime (FMR) were rapidly shifting Manipur’s demographic balance and the challenge had intensified now. FMR allows cross-border movement up to 16km without papers. “We have only three MPs to represent us in the nation’s highest decision-making body (Parliament),” he wrote.
Only a fraction of those who have entered Manipur illegally have been identified, he wrote. To buttress his point, he reposted one of his alerts of 2022 marked to Union home minister Amit Shah about a Myanmar national arrested with a deceased Indian’s Aadhaar.