Since last May, fighting between Meitei and Kuki-Zo in the Myanmar-bordering state has killed 220 and displaced 60,000
\nGUWAHATI
\nIndia\u2019s main opposition Congress party bagged both parliamentary seats in strife-torn Manipur in the general election as the north-eastern state voted out Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s ruling party and its ally after year-long ethnic clashes.
\nSince May last year, the remote state bordering Myanmar has been roiled by fighting between the majority Meitei and tribal Kuki-Zo people that killed at least 220 people and displaced 60,000 to relief camps.
\nThe state of 3.2 million people continues to be divided into two enclaves\u2013a valley controlled by Meiteis and Kuki-dominated hills, separated by a stretch of \u201cno man\u2019s land\u201d monitored by federal paramilitary forces.
\nIn the lead-up to the election, victims on both sides of the sectarian divide expressed their displeasure with Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party for not being able to bring peace to the state.
\n\u201cThis is the voice of those people who love their motherland and those who resented the kind of things we have gone through in the last year… the suffering, the tragedy,\u201d said Congress\u2019s A Bimol Akoijam, who beat his BJP rival in the Meiteis-dominated inner Manipur seat by close to 110,000 votes.
\nThe Outer Manipur seat, in the hills, has predominantly Kuki-Zo and the Naga tribal communities. Alfred Kanngam S Arthur won the seat for Congress, defeating the candidate put up by the BJP\u2019s ally by more than 85,000 votes.
\nModi is set to retain power at the head of a ruling coalition but his Hindu nationalist party lost its outright majority for the first time in a decade as voters defied predictions of another landslide.
\nIn 2019, Modi\u2019s BJP, which also governs the state, and its ally won both parliamentary seats in Manipur.
\n\u201cIn normal times, we would have won. The emotions and sentiments are still running high, and that has bubbled over, and translated to negative votes against the BJP,\u201d said Elangbam Johnson Singh, the BJP\u2019s Manipur spokesperson, adding that there were \u201cmany hurdles\u201d in controlling the violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since last May, fighting between Meitei and Kuki-Zo in the Myanmar-bordering state has killed 220 and displaced 60,000 GUWAHATI India\u2019s main opposition Congress party bagged both parliamentary seats in strife-torn Manipur in the general election as the north-eastern state voted out Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s ruling party and its ally after year-long ethnic clashes. Since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-411092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n