Behind the mad rush for the ultimate ticket with so many contenders, the fog over who is going to lead the next BJP or BJP-led government in the state is slowly clearing up in the public domain mainly with the utterances of BJP central leaders and observers who had been camping in the state for the last few months in the run-up to the 2022 general elections.
The important question today on everyone’s lips had been whether BJP was going to put up a chief ministerial face in 2022 elections or not. In 2017, the party did not have one as it was fixated on overturning the tables on the 15-year-old Congress regime. Somehow, N Biren Singh got lucky with the defeat of a few old warhorses like former Union Minister Th Chaoba Singh. And, the Biren government was plagued more by internal dissension rather than by allies or Congress design. Yet, he managed to weather the internal storms and brought the coalition so far.
If the BJP leadership is really keen on getting a majority of its own to ensure stability and pursuit of its goals, it must also take care of ensuring a strong leadership and absence of internal dissension. People are talking of the Assam style in which no CM face was projected and ultimately led to Himanta Biswa becoming the CM and Sonowal shifted to Centre. Whether such a model could be applied to Manipur is open to question, as circumstances and political dynamics are different now.
In the 2017 assembly elections, ‘winnability’ was a major factor and BJP pull out all stops in its singular objective of unseating the 15-year-old Congress regime and except for a few, many of the BJP candidates were first-timers. The all-out effort in 2017 elections could produce only 21 MLAs in the 60-member Manipur assembly and it was forced to hastily cobble together a fragile coalition of parties and MLAs including a Congress deserter, while the single largest party Congress with 28 MLAs were denied a chance. As such, the attention of the party were most of the time consumed in managing the fragile coalition and also in tackling the infighting among the power centres within the party. This situation, the party wants to avoid it this time around.
The current mood of the party leadership combined with the utterings of party observers at public and closed meetings hints at N Biren Singh continuing as the leader, although certain elements within the party had been toying with the idea of new leadership. The State incharge of BJP Sambit Patra and Election incharges had also been hinting at N Biren Singh returning as CM. Even National President JP Nadda himself had hinted in his address at the Kakching Youth rally about the incumbent N Biren Singh returning as CM again, just short of announcing him as the CM face.
So far, BJP’s campaign had been talking about progress on many fronts through the efforts of a double-engine push with a special focus on the achievements of N Biren Singh and his innovative ventures like Go to Hills or Go to Village mission. Now the million dollar question is whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would make a categorical announcement on who would be leading the next BJP government or not. The Prime Minister’s visit in January this year was official and it would have been awkward to make a political announcement.
This time, PM Narendra Modi is coming for campaigning for assembly elections. On January 6 at the virtual conference, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was very clear on the question of the next leadership as he appealed to the people of Manipur to vote for BJP in the 2022 elections so that a BJP government led by N Biren Singh returns once again to continue the ‘good work’ of the double engine combine. We all know, there are claimants to the throne like Senior Minister Th Biswajit and recent Congress defector Govindas Konthoujam. There is also talk of Minister Biswajit teaming up with the state BJP President A Sharda Devi in the process of awarding party tickets to candidates of their choice. Somehow, Chief Minister N Biren Singh seems to have won the first round. While on the other hand, local RSS seems to be adverse to both N Biren Singh and Th Biswajit and wants to install a person of their choice. The question now is whether BJP will bend to the pressure of RSS.
