CPI hunger strike goes on
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 29 2024:
Urging the Government to call an Assembly session and end the violent conflict in Manipur, the Communist Party of India-Manipur State Council (CPI-MSC) staged a hunger strike at Irawat Bhavan, today.
The three day hunger strike of the Left party which began yesterday at Chalou in Lamlai AC will conclude tomorrow at Kakching Lamkhai.
Some of the popular demands which were raised during the hunger strike were to end the conflict, convene an Assembly session immediately and resettle the people currently taking refuge at relief camps at their native places.
The Left leaders also urged the Government to not pay any heed to the separate administration demand of Kuki-Zo people and keep the State's unity and integrity intact.
Speaking to the media by the sideline of the hunger strike, secretary of CPI-MSC Leishangthem Thoiren said that the otherwise peaceful Manipur has literally been enveloped by tragedy since May 3 last year with no solution in sight.
Saying that Kuki narco-terrorists have killed dozens of innocent Meiteis and burnt thousands of houses in the course of the ongoing violence, Thoiren continued that the double engine BJP Governments at the Centre and the State, however, are busy holding campaigns to win the Parliamentary elections instead of dousing the flame of violence besieging Manipur.
He went on to state that thousands of families have been living like refugees in their own State.
Maintaining that the protracted violence has made the life of every Manipuri miserable, Thoiren urged the Government to restore normalcy in Manipur at the earliest.
He recalled that CPI leader D Raja classified the violence in Manipur as a social and political one in the initial stage of the conflict and had urged the Central leaders to work out a solution on May 5 last year.
Thoiren further said that a Parliamentary team of the Left party had visited Manipur three times amid the conflict and reached out to the people.
Continuing that the party tried multiple times to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and to raise the Manipur issue on the floor of Parliament, he said that the Centre, unfortunately, didn't give the Party leaders a chance to discuss the situation of Manipur.
Thoiren said that the CPI, nonetheless, met the President and apprised her to save Manipur.