New Delhi: The resignation of an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre soon after he was named to lead a special investigation team (SIT) on a case related to the Manipur ethnic violence has taken a curious turn with him now claiming that he had put in his papers after an assurance was given by Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma that he would be given a ticket from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to contest the general elections from Bihar. On May 7, Anand Mishra, a native of Bihar’s Buxar, has filed his nomination papers to contest the parliamentary polls from Buxar as an independent candidate.According to news reports on December 15, Mishra was to chair the SIT as per a Supreme Court directive. The order was in tandem with the apex court’s order this past August, directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to form as many as 42 SITs to probe cases related to the violence in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled northeastern state.The CBI was told to compose those SITs with officers from outside Manipur and the probe would be monitored by the court. Since May 3, 2023, over 200 people have lost lives in the ethnic violence in the state while around 60,000 people have been displaced, several of whom have since taken shelter in relief camps. Among other reports and videos of violence that erupted between the state’s Meitei and Kuki communities, there was also a video clip of two Kuki women sexually assaulted by a mob, which forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence on the strife in a state ruled by his party. Throughout the violence, the Modi regime was seen supporting the N. Biren Singh government in spite of massive law and order breakdown in the border state. In such a situation comes the IPS officer’s claim to the media that he had resigned from his post just days after he was named to lead one of the SITs on Manipur violence because he was promised a BJP ticket by Assam chief minister Sarma, a top leader of the party in the Northeast.According to news reports published on December 28, Mishra had submitted his resignation on December 18 to the state chief secretary through the DGP — three days after reports suggested that he was appointed as the in-charge of the SIT. Stating in his resignation letter that he wanted to serve his home state Bihar and could do so only by leaving the service, Mishra had sought to be relieved of his duties from January 16 onwards. There was speculation in the media then that he would soon be joining the ruling party. The speculation gained wind with Nagaland BJP president and minister Temjen Imna Along hailing Mishra for one of his social media posts this February.However, in a video statement on Facebook this April 2, Mishra had said that he would be contesting the elections as an independent candidate. “I was trying to contest in the elections from a political party of the country to better implement my views for the benefit of the country. Since I have not received a ticket and that way has not worked out, I will still do so independently because the will to work for the country and the people is still there,” he said in the clip.Mishra, a 2001 batch IPS officer, had come to notice in the Northeast for carrying out operations against militants of the Garo while being posted in Meghalaya. Often termed in local media as Assam’s ‘Singham’ (after a Hindi movie character of a cop from a film by the same name), Mishra’s career, when posted in Assam, was fraught with controversy. In 2022, he was shunted out of Nagaon, for shooting a local student leader, accusing him of being a drug peddler. The massive public anger against that move by the Sarma government had forced the chief minister, who is also the state home minister, to announce an internal probe; and Mishra was thereafter transferred to Lakhimpur, his last posting.On May 18, Assam chief minister Sarma, while addressing a rally for the BJP in Bihar, claimed that Mishra had the backing of the opposition Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to “cut the votes” of his party candidate from Buxar, Mithlesh Tiwari. Reacting to Sarma’s statement, Mishra told India Today NE on May 19, “Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP promised me that they would introduce and include me in the BJP and asked me to resign from my position of Indian Police Service… but eventually, they betrayed me and did not include me in the party.”