Meitei Majoritarian Politics of the BJP in Manipur

The successful capture of power by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Manipur following the 2017 assembly elections has significantly affected the state’s ethnic politics. Since its resurgence, the BJP has worked to provide the Meitei community significant electoral positions while marginalising other religious and ethnic minorities. As a result, ethnic politics have become more intensified in Manipur.

According to the 2011 Census, Manipur has a population of almost three million and a diverse ethnic population with complex communal divides. The state’s politics is focused mainly on issues of development, ethnicity, and insurgency (Hausing 2015). Since its first assembly elections in 1952, Manipur’s electoral politics has changed with the formation of new constituencies and an increased number of voters. The resurgence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the state’s most potent political party during the 2017 assembly elections represented a watershed moment in Manipur’s electoral history, thereby ending the Indian National Congress’s (INC) 15-year rule in the state. Currently, the BJP is the single largest party having won 32 out of 60 seats in the 2022 assembly elections, and is in coalition with the National People’s Party (NPP) with seven seats and the Naga People’s Front (NPF) with five seats. The coalition is part of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a subregional group of the BJP’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The coalition is supported by two seats from the newly launched Kuki People’s Alliance (KPA) as well.