N Biren Singh kick-starts BJP’s by-election rally

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh kick-started an election rally of the ruling BJP in Manipur’s Thoubal district on Wednesday.

Manipur will witness by-elections to fill some vacant seats of the state Legislative Assembly. As notified by the state Legislative Assembly, 13 seats in the 60-seat state Assembly are lying vacant currently.

Nine of the 13 seats were vacated by three BJP MLAs and six Congress MLAs who tendered their resignations as members of the state Assembly, while four seats were lying vacant after the Speaker of the state Assembly disqualified them from being members of the Assembly under Anti-defection law.

However, the election authorities are yet to fix the number of seats which by-elections will be held as cases of some MLAs are still pending with the court.

Election Commission of India (ECI) had already hinted of holding the due by-elections in the state along with other states around the same time with the assembly elections to the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

The elections to the Bihar Assembly are to be held before November last week. As such, ECI is likely to conduct the elections by October-November.

After the ECI hinted of holding the due by-elections, aspirant candidates have already started their election campaigns in Manipur.  

Meanwhile, Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh kick-started the election campaign of Paonam Brojen who was a Congress MLA until he resigned along with five other Congress MLAs on August 10.

Brojen is planning to contest the by-election necessitated for the Wangjing-Tentha Assembly constituency in Thoubal district vacated by him to join the BJP fold. In the last assembly election to the state Assembly, he won the seat on Congress ticket.

In this address at the rally, the chief minister highlighted ‘achievements’ of the three and a half years old BJP-led coalition government in the state.

He reiterated that the present government is committed to all round developments of the state and to translate into work the commitment, and that “various  welfare schemes have been implemented”.

Biren Singh then said that the state government is working hard with sacrifice to bring forward the development paces of the state.

NNN