Manipur Governor summons state assembly session on August 29
POLITICS
Imphal: The much sought Manipur assembly session to discuss the ongoing ethnic feud besetting the state would be convened on August 29. This followed an order by Governor Anusuiya Uikey.
A notification to this effect was issued on Monday by the Manipur Legislative Assembly secretary, K Meghajit Singh and the same was released to the media by Manipur information and public relations department on Tuesday.
It reads“ In exercise of powers conferred by Clause (1) of Article 174 of the Constitution of India, I , Anusuiya Uikey , Governor of Manipur , hereby summon the 4th Session of the Twelfth Manipur Legislative Assembly to meet at 11,00 AM on Tuesday , the 29th August in the Assembly Hall, Imphal.”
This came a day after the N Biren Singh cabinet resolved to convene the assembly session on August 29, and subsequently sent a recommendation of its decision to the Governor, seeking her assent for convening the session.
Notably, according to an earlier decision of the same cabinet, the assembly session was supposed to be held on Monday, but the sitting was not held as no notification towards its end was issued by the Raj Bhavan. The last session was adjourned sine die in March this year.
Soon after Monday’s cabinet meeting, another meeting of the ruling legislators also held to discuss the proposed sitting as well as the current ethnic crisis besieging the state.
The meeting decided to relocate the people who are currently putting up at relief camps owing to the public unrest to the newly constructed prefabricated houses from Wednesday.
Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president and senior legislator K Meghachandra Singh on Monday said that the non-issuance of notification to convene the session by the Governor towards the earlier cabinet decision shows that there is something amiss in the government.
A few days after the earlier cabinet decision, the Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM) had urged the all 10 legislators of the community not to participate in the state assembly, and some of the MLAs had mentioned their inability to attend the session citing the currently ethnic turmoil as well as the hard pressure mounted on them.
The United Naga Council (UNC) had also cautioned all 10 Naga MLAs not to attend the assembly under the dictate of some “valley” civil society organisations.
UNC had stated that convening special assembly session under the dictate of valley civil organistations to protect “ Manipur’s territorial integrity” and imposing to all MLAs , including the Naga legislators “to stand in their interest is highly uncalled for and nonsensical at this fluid situations.”