New Delhi: With the Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentary board naming Nirmala Sitharaman and Kiren Rijiju as ‘co-observers’ for Manipur on March 14 evening, the party’s announcement procedure of the next chief minister for the north-eastern state has formally begun.If we go by the incumbent chief minister N Biren Singh’s press statement on past March 11, the name of the new chief minister will be announced before March 19.The one state leader who has come out strongest since the results to the assembly election was announced on March 10 is Singh himself. BJP – for the first time for this 60 member assembly – crossed the simple majority mark, winning 32 seats.This victory comes in spite of Singh facing rebellion so vociferous within the party just last year that if the national leadership and the friendly state governor Najma Heptullah had not come to his aid, there may not even have been a BJP government in Manipur with Singh as chief minister at all.Prior to the assembly polls, national party leader Amit Shah had said the elections in the state would be contested with Biren Singh as the leader.On March 14 though, the party’s national leadership called both Biren Singh and rebel leader Th. Biswajit, along with state unit chief Sharda Devi to New Delhi for a closed-door discussion to finalise the chief minister’s name. Rijiju and Sitharaman will now fly to Imphal to execute the decision. The indication seems to be that the matter of who should lead the party’s government this time around is not yet resolved. A pointer to how thorny the issue is also the fact that only nine of the 32 newly elected BJP MLAs showed up at Biren’s residence on March 14 for a tea party that he had hosted in their honour. Still, going by several party insiders in New Delhi, BJP’s national leadership appears prepared to anoint, once more, the man of the moment – Biren Singh. However, what remains the thorn Singh’s side is his government’s blatant dillydally in backing the very public cause that had helped BJP grab the attention of common Manipuris as a serious alternative to Congress. Singh had, in fact, become the face of the party’s campaign towards that public cause – the drug menace in the state eating into a considerable section of the younger generation of Manipuris. The public sentiment against illegal drug trade in the border state is deep and protracted. The BJP, by taking it up in the run-up to the 2017 polls, had, therefore, gained considerable public approval. Last week, a report by the Imphal-based news site The Frontier Manipur (TFM), took this issue straight to chief minister Biren Singh’s official chambers by publishing a photograph of him meeting an Australian medical doctor on September 17, 2019. #EXCLUSIVE: #Aussie Accused Of #Drug Peddling Nabbed In Mumbai Met CM #Biren Two Months Before His Arrest #Manipur https://t.co/fNIKQAeZA2— The Frontier Manipur (@FrontierManipur) March 11, 2022That meeting was two months before the doctor, Reza Borhani (50), was arrested by Mumbai Police after having been allegedly discovered with Rs 1.8 crore worth of LSD at a hotel. The site of Reza Borhani’s office in Guwahati.Borhani is the founder of the company Cannabis Health and Science Private Limited, which runs from a flat in Guwahati. He has been out on bail since 2020, though the case is still on. According to his lawyer Pradeep Havnur, Borhani had been campaigning for medicinal use of cannabis and had been falsely implicated in the case. The next hearing of the case in Mumbai is on March 16. TFM reports that Borhani had sought from the Biren Singh government a permit or licence to legally “hold, transport and use” “the seeds, flowers and leaves of the cannabis plant from Manipur for the purpose of scientific research and testing in institutions, laboratories and hospitals within Manipur and in the states of Mizoram, Meghalaya, Assam, Karnataka, Orissa, Goa and Maharashtra” for his company. The site published an application dated September 19, 2019, signed by Borhani and addressed to the Manipur horticulture minister, with a clear instruction from the chief minister in his own handwriting to “allow and issue permit for sampler” that day itself. The Wire had republished the story and can be read here.Whether Borhani’s meeting with Biren Singh had anything to do with augmenting the drug menace in the state is not yet established but why that story had gained traction in the state and elsewhere is the growing public perception that the Biren Singh-led BJP government has been ‘soft pedalling’ the issue of drugs.Before delving into it further, let’s look at how BJP – months before the 2017 assembly elections in what was a crucial image-building phase – was seen siding wholeheartedly with the public against the drug menace in the border state. Most Manipuris had been irked by the Okram Ibobi Singh government not taking any effective steps to curb it. On campaign mode, the state unit of the BJP had then taken its ‘war against drugs’ to Ibobi Singh’s home, by categorically pointing fingers at the Congress chief minister’s powerful nephew Okram Henry Singh, also a minister in his government. Henry was accused of having been involved in illegal drug trade. The ammunition for this came from a case involving seizure of a huge consignment of drugs at the Imphal airport, brought to the state via an Air Deccan flight on January 12, 2013. Henry was accused of having a hand in the import of that consignment. His uncle, the chief minister, announced a probe by a special team but had to ultimately hand it over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under public pressure, fuelled largely by BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers on the ground.CBI’s taking over of the case came at an opportune time for the BJP. The party could send to voters the message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was walking the talk on the drug menace. That factor, added to Modi’s countrywide popularity, helped BJP catapult itself from being a nobody in the state to cornering 21 of the 60 seats in the 2017 polls. Taking the 2013 drug haul case forward, the CBI’s Kolkata unit, on May 22, 2017, filed a charge sheet in the case, naming Henry as an accused along with four others. On occupying the chief minister’s post, Biren Singh took the campaign a step forward by formally announcing his government’s ‘war on drugs’. Much to public approval, the Biren government set up a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances court to fast-track drug haul cases. Several successful operations were carried out by the Narcotics and Affairs of Border (NAB) Bureau thereafter. Its additional superintendent of police Th. Brinda, became a celebrity cop for such a drive within and outside Manipur.Till of course, the NAB under her on June 20, 2018, caught in its net a local BJP leader widely seen close to the chief minister – Leitkhosei Zou.Also read: Why Is the Manipur Chief Minister Angry With a State Super Cop?As per news reports, Zou, then the chairman of the autonomous district council of Chandel, was caught in a midnight raid at his official residence with drugs worth Rs 27 crore. The charge sheet in the case was filed on December 15, 2018. Four days later, Zou was released on interim bail by the ND&PS court on health grounds. Drugs seized from Zou’s property. Photo: Twitter/@zoo_bearThree weeks later, when he was summoned for appearance in the case following the end of his bail term, he was not to be found and declared an absconder. In February that year, he reappeared, claiming he was kidnapped by an armed group and taken to Myanmar. The special court sent him to judicial custody. But by May 21, 2019, he was once again released on bail on health grounds by the same ND&PS court even though he had once disappeared when granted bail on similar grounds. At the end of that bail period he was taken into judicial custody. It is noteworthy that the police officer leading the anti-drug initiative, Th. Brinda, had in an affidavit to the Manipur high court in July 2019, accused the chief minister of using the then BJP vice-president Asnikumar Moirangthem to convince her to not file the charge sheet in the case involving Zou. By December 17, 2019, Zou and 10 other co-accused were again out of jail – after the ND&PS court acquitted them stating that the prosecution had “totally failed to prove charges levelled against them”. The court convicted two other persons in the case. Zou’s acquittal alarmed civil society. On December 22, 2019, over 1,000 people signed a letter to the chief minister as part of civil society organisation 3.5 Collective’s initiative. The civil society coalition hopes achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal to strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse. The letter stated that the conviction of the two persons in that case, one of them said to be employed as a driver of Zou then, was seen by the public in Manipur as “mere scapegoating to let go the big fish so that he can continue with his political career and illicit trade.” Importantly, the letter urged the BJP-led government to appeal in the high court against the ND&PS court’s verdict in the case. The appeal was also made to Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. The Union government has been silent on the matter. In January 2021, a group of about 50 women led by All Manipur Women’s Social Reformation and Development Samaj, met the chief minister and also submitted a memorandum demanding a re-investigation into the case. The memorandum had said, “If the government is honest on its own slogan of ‘War on Drugs’, we see no reason it should hesitate to move the appeal in the high court.” On March 20, 2021, the Manipur high court – responding to a petition filed by the 3.5 Collective along with a set of individuals who are victims of substance abuse – directed the Biren government to file a counter affidavit within seven days. Manipur high court.Speaking to The Wire, the convenor of the 3.5 Collective Babloo Loitongbam said, “It was strange that the Biren government gave the same argument as given by Zou in the special court to protect himself. It put all the blame on the driver and also stated that he was not present at the site and was wrongly identified.” The well-known Imphal-based social activist said, “With the state government reluctant to challenge the special court order, we filed that appeal in the HC as victims are legally allowed to challenge such a verdict. The appellant number one had suffered personal loss and injury due to substance abuse during his prime. With much difficulty, he survived the ordeal and has recovered since. He now runs Users Society for Effective Response (USER) Manipur, a community organisation of victims of drug abuse in the state and also runs a rehab facility for drug users.” The second appellant is an office bearer of Coalition Against Drugs and Alcohol (CADA), an NGO campaigning to save Manipuri youth from drug and alcohol abuse. “Aside from myself, the other appellant is a veteran social worker from the Kamjong district along the Indo-Myanmar border, one of the most affected areas of the drug menace. His own family members are victims,” he said.All four appellants are members of the 3.5 Collective.On May 2, 2020 though, the high court – going by the prosecution’s argument that they are not victims of substance abuse but a third party – dismissed the petition claiming that, “If the appeal is granted, it would be a dangerous doctrine and would cause utter confusion in the criminal justice system.” It said, “Further, the petitioners have failed to produce any authoritative pronouncement of the highest court to show that they are entitled to seek special leave to appeal against acquittal judgment.” The court order said ultimately the state had to decide on the matter and the court could not force it to appeal against the special court’s acquittal order. The appellants, Loitongbam told this correspondent, thereafter petitioned the Supreme Court on the matter in October 2021. “However, the country’s highest court is yet to take cognisance of the important matter.” He said, “The biggest worry for those fighting for social justice today is the gradual capitulation of the institutions that the common people have entrusted their faith on. The SC is yet to take note of an important petition filed long before the assembly elections in Manipur. Look at the state’s poll results; there was a huge spurt in violence during the elections but nothing was done by the authorities. I would call the poll results delivered by Election Commission of India and not by common public.” Meanwhile, Okram Henry Singh, accused by the BJP of being involved in the state’s drug trade prior to the 2017 polls, was brought to the party by Biren Singh and national BJP leader Ram Madhav, in August 2020 to contest the 2022 elections under its symbol. Henry, who fought from Wangkhei constituency on BJP ticket, lost to Janata Dal (United) candidate Th. Arunkumar.
