Professor from JNU elected MP from Manipur seat

A Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor is among the two Congress MPs who won the two Lok Sabha seats (Inner and Outer) in Manipur. In the inner Manipur constituency seat, Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, 56, defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party’s T Basanta Kumar Singh, who is also the state education minister in the Biren Singh government.

Akoijam won with a margin of 109,801 votes, a significant feat as he won in the Meitei-dominated Inner Manipur constituency. Manipur chief minister Biren Singh of the BJP also comes from the Meitei community.

Previously, BJP’s Dr Raj Kumar Ranjan Singh, the former minister of state for external affairs, occupied the seat. “People have voted for Congress because of what has been happening in our state for the last year. The BJP government has failed to control the violence and restore normalcy... People have felt their state has been destroyed and ignored. I think that resentment has translated into this massive mandate,” Akoijom told HT.

An MA and PhD in Psychology, Akoijam is a teacher at JNU’s Centre for the Study of Social Systems in the School of Social Sciences.

“People tried to break up Manipur but this government has done nothing to fight back against such elements... This is a message for those who want to take Manipur and its people for granted,” he added.

Akoijam who is yet to take oath said that he will now speak in the Parliament about Manipur and make the voices of his people living in the northeastern state heard in the national Capital.

The Inner Manipur constituency mainly comprises Meitei-dominated valley districts while tribals are a majority in the Outer Manipur districts. Over a year after clashes between the Meiteis and Kukis engulfed the states, the communities live divided in their respective districts. Meiteis who lived in hilly districts have returned to community-dominant valley districts such as Imphal and Bishnupur while Kukis settled in Imphal have shifted to the hilly areas, even as security forces continue to guard the boundaries.

At least 225 people have died and nearly 50,000 have been displaced, living in relief camps, because of the ethnic clashes between the two groups, which started on May 3, 2023.