Asem Bhakta Singh, Special Correspondent North East
Imphal: (Waari Singbul Network ) Manipur’s lone JD (U) MLA Md Abdul Nasir on Tuesday noon called on the newly appointed Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and apprised him about the ongoing strife besetting the northeastern state.
Nitish, during the meeting, expressed serious concern about the Manipur turmoil and “assured me that he would urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah to extend their all-out efforts to bring back peace in the state at the earliest,” Nasir said on Wednesday.
“I called on Nitish-ji at his official residence in Patna to congratulate him for being appointed as the new CM of Bihar under the new alliance with BJP and lobby for ushering normalcy in Manipur,” added Nasir.
“Sharing the pains inflicted on the people by the unceasing strife, Nitish-ji also prayed for peace in the state,” said Nasir, who won from Lilong assembly constituency in Thoubal district in the last state assembly polls in March 2022.
“On my loyalty to JD (U), Nitish-ji fondly called me ‘you are my trusted friend’ and mentioned that time will tell about political developments in Manipur,” Nasir said.
The party’s northeast in-charge, Afaque Ahmad Khan, who termed Nasir “the face of JD (U) in the region,” said that a team of the party would soon visit Imphal to discuss political development as well as the situation gripping in the state.
Meanwhile, political analysts, considering the political landscape in Bihar and taking into account Nasir’s steadfast loyalty to JD (U), felt that he might get a berth in the N Biren Singh cabinet in Manipur.
In the state assembly polls, JD (U) won a total of six seats in the sixty-member house, and was seen as a key player in government the formation. However after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar walked out of the NDA, five of six party MLAs from Manipur – Khumukcham Joykishan Singh, Md Asab Uddin, Thangjam Arunkumar, LM Khaute and Ngursanglur Sanate have left the JD(U) to merge with the BJP in Manipur in September 2022, leaving Nasir as the lone steadfast JD(U) legislator.
On September 12 of the same year, the state unit JD (U), coming in line with the political development in Bihar, had withdrawn support from the BJP-led government in Manipur.
Seeking disqualification of the five MLAs who merged with the saffron party, the state unit JD (U) had filed a fresh petition with theSpeaker’s tribunal of Manipur Assembly.
