The state of Manipur elects 1 member for the term of 6 years and indirectly elected by the state legislators, since the year 1972 in the Rajya Sabha of Manipur.
The last BJP-led coalition government has 23 MLA’s MLAs, 22 including the Speaker, four from the Naga People’s Front (NPF) and one from Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). The ‘SPF’ has 26 MLAs, including 20 Congress, four NPP, a Trinamool Congress and an Independent MLA.
Recent Political Developments of the BJP-led Government :
On the evening of 18th June, 9 MLA who has been supporting the N Biren Singh have withdrawn support from the BJP led government in Manipur. This includes the BJP MLA’s who have resigned from their shift. They resigned from the state legislative assembly by sending a resignation letter and left the BJP family to join Congress. The rest four MIA’s were from the National People’s Party (NPP). Deputy chief minister Yumnam Joykumar Singh, YAS minister Letpao Haokip ,tribal affairs minister N Kayisii and Health and Family Minister, L Jayantkumar Singh had withdrawn their support to the BJP -led Government. One independent MLA and one TMC MLA has also withdrawn from their statuses. BJP was aware of this political drama.
The Congress too was confident of winning the Rajya Sabha Elections on Friday by defeating Manipur’s titular King Leishemba Sanajaoba to the lone Rajya Sabha seat.
The Speaker advanced the date of proceedings regarding the disqualification of the seven turncoat MLAs to 18 June from 22 June “without any reason. Three BJP MLAs have resigned, with the Speaker accepting their resignations, taking their total strength in the assembly to 18. On the other hand the Congress then represented ⅓rd out of the total strength of the 60-member assembly. Erstwhile, Congress leader Thounaojam Shyamkumar had been disbarred for his defection to BJP, and seven other Congress leaders are barred from the premises by the High Court of Manipur, making a total of 11 defaulters out of the 60 in assembly.In an alleged move to compel the Speaker to be unable to debar the awaiting seven defectors in the pending anti-defection cases, Congress MLA K. Meghachandra, alongwith 12 other MLAs including NPP legislators, worked on a motion with the Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretary for the dismissal of the Speaker Yumnam Khemchand under section 179 (c) of the Constitution of India.
In a surprise move, the Speaker of the assembly had allowed three Congress legislators to cast their vote, despite them being barred from entering the assembly by the Manipur High Court. The decision of the Speaker has changed the course of the votes as it had hoped to get the support of one independent MLA, who abstained from voting, and one TMC MLA, who was disqualified.
Results :
On the evening of June 19th, the election results were out.
The state of Manipur having witnessed hectic developments recently after nine legislators withdrew support to the N Biren Singh-led BJP government pushing it into a minority, made it an interesting one.
Even after the hectic political developments, BJP still surprisingly came out to win the lone seat from the state. It has dodged the first threat to it’s survival by winning the seat. Sanajaoba got the support of 18 MLAs from the BJP, 4 from the NPP (Naga People’s Front ), 1 from LJP (Lok Janshakti Party), and five from Congress.
Speaking later on the win, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav said, “BJP has won the lone RS seat in Manipur with 28 votes to Congress’ 24 votes. It should now put all speculation about the Manipur government’s stability and future to rest. Congratulations to the Manipur CM and his colleagues for this convincing victory.”
Hearty congratulations to BJP candidate Maharaja Leishemba Sanajaoba on being elected as #RajyaSabha member from Manipur. A great satisfying win defeating all the evil machinations of INC. Wishig you good luck in serving the nation, party & people of Manipur @JPNadda @blsanthosh pic.twitter.com/9EWxaRGeVu
— S Tikendra Singh (@STikendraBJP) June 19, 2020
Manipur BJP President Tikendra Singh said, “The government is stable and we have proved it by winning the (Rajya Sabha) election.”