The two seats of Manipur do not have any major influence in shaping national outcomes in the Lok Sabha polls. However, the Congress winning these seats, both of which were formerly held by the National Democratic Alliance, is a significant political consequence of the ongoing ethnic conflict in the state. The two seats of Manipur voted in two phases on 19 and 26 April. The voting took place days before the state marked a full year since ethnic clashes first began, killing over 200 people and displacing over 50,000. For the state, the conflict between Meiteis -- who make up most of the electorate in the Inner Manipur seat, and the Kuki-Zomis who, along with the Nagas, make up for a significant portion of the voters in the Outer Manipur seat reserved for tribal -- became the focus of this election. Both groups involved in the conflict appear to have consolidated behind the Congress owing to the widespread resentment against the BJP-led Centre and state governments’ handling of the conflict. In the Inner Manipur seat, Jawaharlal Nehru University associate professor A. Bimol Akoijam, who made his political debut this election on a Congress ticket, won by a margin of one lakh votes against the BJP’s Th. Basanta Kumar Singh, a minister in the state’s Biren Singh cabinet. In 2019, the seat had been won by the BJP’s R.K. Ranjan Singh. Speaking to reporters after his win, Akoijam said that the victory signified “a clear message -- don’t take the people of this state for granted”. “I’m here for my state. I have fought this election in the name of my state… We have a crisis. My priority is that the people (who) have been homeless for one year should go back and live a normal dignified life. This must be done. (Doing that) will be my first priority,” he said. The election campaign in Inner Manipur was largely a muted affair given the overwhelming public sentiment against it until the resolution of the ongoing crisis. The only major public meeting for the seat was held by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. In the Outer Manipur seat, meanwhile, there were no Kuki-Zomi candidates. This was in line with the calls against contesting in the election, given by influential Kuki-Zomi groups. As a result, all candidates in the fray were Nagas, with the two main contenders being the BJP-backed Naga People’s Front’s Timothy Zimik and the Congress’ Alfred K. Arthur. The Naga People’s Front had won the seat in 2019. While there was no campaigning in the Kuki-Zomi majority areas, community leaders called their voters to rally behind Alfred K. Arthur as a consensus candidate “to best represent the community”. In a public statement it issued Tuesday, the umbrella group Zo United said that the election has thrown up “positive result to our favour and our participation in the largest democratic election of the world is a prove [sic] that we are true citizens of India”. “The recent election was a platform for raising one voice by Kuki-Zo community whereby we have explicitly expressed our displeasure against Manipur government,” the statement goes on to add.
