Wanted to be in Opposition to discuss Manipur violence: MP Vanlalvena

Responding to Home Minister Amit Shah's statement in Parliament last week that Kukis from Myanmar contributed to the ethnic clashes in Manipur, Mizoram's Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) K Vanlalvena said on August 12 that he wished to be a part of the Opposition as he wanted to discuss the Manipur issue, according to a report by India Today NE.

Vanlalvena's party, the Mizo National Front (MNF), is a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Vanlalvena stated that he was not allowed to speak on the Manipur issue even though he is the lone member representing the Mizo community in the Rajya Sabha. He added that the violence in Manipur was well planned and not an accident.

Countering the home minister's remarks on Manipur, the MNF MP had responded in the Upper House that the tribal people in Manipur were not immigrants but had inhabited the northeast region for over two centuries before British colonisation. “I am a tribal from Mizoram. We are not foreigners and we are not Myanmarese nationals, we are Indians. We have been in the northeast hundreds of years before India became independent," Vanlalvena had said in Rajya Sabha.

'Not right to blame refugees'

Vanlalvena told The Hindu that blaming the refugees for the violence was not right. Mizoram had sheltered more than 40,000 "refugees" from Myanmar since 2021, they had never created any problems. To say that some tribals entered Mizoram and Manipur and created this trouble is incorrect, he added.

Vanlalvena said that he gave notices to discuss Manipur since the start of the Monsoon session, but the Chair did not accept them. A day after Shah blamed the Kuki people from Myanmar, the microphone was switched off when he wanted to speak.

No one from the BJP has reached out to him, he stated, adding that he had submitted a memorandum to union minister Sarbananda Sonowal after failing to get an appointment with Shah

India Today NE quoted sources as saying that Vanlalvena is preparing for candidacy in the upcoming Mizoram Assembly polls later this year.