The Manipur unit of the Congress described the meeting of the State’s Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs in New Delhi on Sunday (December 14, 2025) as a “crash course on how to justify administrative failures back home”.
The BJP’s central leadership had summoned these MLAs to discuss “peace and progress” in Manipur, which has been struggling to recover from the scars of the ethnic violence that broke out between the majority Meitei and the tribal Kuki-Zo communities on May 3, 2023.
Former Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh and four of the party’s seven Kuki-Zo MLAs were among the 34 who attended. This was the first time that the Meitei and Kuki MLAs of the State sat face-to-face after more than two years.
“Instead of restoring law and order in Manipur, the BJP has reduced its MLAs to students, attending crash courses in Delhi on how to justify administrative failures back home,” Manipur Congress president Keisham Meghachandra Singh wrote on X on Monday (December 15, 2025).
On Sunday (December 14, 2025), BJP national general secretary B.L. Santhosh said the meeting with the Manipur MLAs was a “very fruitful exercise” where peace and development of the State were discussed.
“Everyone resolved to strive hard to bring back normalcy in the State and get the developmental work going at full steam,” he said, triggering speculations about the possible formation of a government in Manipur after almost a year of President’s Rule.
President’s rule was imposed in the State on February 13, four days after Mr. Singh resigned as the Chief Minister. The Assembly is now under suspended animation.
The ethnic violence, which left more than 260 people dead and an estimated 62,000 others internally displaced, drove a wedge between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos. Members of the two communities have not ventured into each other’s territories since.
