Meitei, Thadou Leaders Ask Governor To Disqualify Manipur BJP MLA Paolienlal Haokip Over Citizenship

BJP MLA Paolienlal Haokip, one of the fiercest critics of former Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh and a key political figure in the demand for a separate administration for the Kuki tribes, has termed a move by two activists seeking his disqualification as "an attempt to silence" him.

T Michael Lamjathang Haokip, 33, who is from the Thadou tribe, and Mayanglambam Bobby Meetei, 42, who belongs to the valley-dominant Meitei community, filed a sworn affidavit to Manipur Governor AK Bhalla explaining the grounds to disqualify Paolienlal Haokip as MLA of Saikot (Scheduled Tribes) constituency in the Kuki-dominant Churachandpur district.

The two men in the 63-page affidavit which they highlighted also contained material to support their allegations said the Saikot MLA is "either a foreigner or otherwise a legal alien/legally non-existent person viz not an Indian citizen."

NDTV has seen a copy of the affidavit. Indian citizenship is a mandatory requirement for anyone who wants to fight elections and become an MLA.

Paolienlal Haokip has called the joint move by the Meitei and Thadou tribe activists a bid to silence his and his people's voice.

"It's a poor, brazen attempt to silence the voice of the oppressed people," the MLA told NDTV on Saturday.

Paolienlal Haokip is a member of Any Kuki Tribes (AKT), a category which was re-added to Manipur's ST list in 2003 after it was removed decades ago in 1956.

Paolienlal Haokip maintains the only solution to the Manipur crisis is to create a Union Territory with legislature for his people. "... The government's delay in addressing these legitimate demands is only worsening the situation on the ground," Mr Haokip said in September 2024.

He is among the 10 Kuki and Zomi MLAs who are seeking a separate administration carved out of Manipur; seven of the 10 MLAs are from the ruling BJP.

The affidavit said Paolienlal Haokip in papers given to the Election Commission of India (ECI) mentioned his date of birth as June 23, 1974 and place of birth as Gangpizang, a village in Churachandpur district. While he would have been eligible to vote in any election since 1992, he enrolled as a first-time voter only in 2021 when he turned 46 and a year before he contested the state election from Saikot seat, the affidavit said.

It said the names of the MLA's family members and relatives entered the electoral rolls for the first time in 2021-22.

"Interestingly, while Paolienlal Haokip is recorded as 46 years old, his daughter is listed as 42, which reflects an implausible age gap of only four years between father and purported daughter," the affidavit said.

"This naturally leads to the question: where had he been throughout all this time, and why was his name absent in the voter list until he was 46 years in the year 2021-2022?" the two activists said in their affidavit.

The affidavit said Paolienlal Haokip's name was not a case of transfer of voter or voter list from another constituency in a state like Assam, where Any Kuki Tribes have been in the ST list before it re-entered Manipur's ST list in 2003.

In Manipur's case, the parliament in 1956 specified the names of all the sub-tribes belonging to two tribal groups earlier known as Any Naga Tribes and Any Kuki Tribes. This drew a response from the then Outer Manipur MP Rishang Keishing, who raised concerns that mentioning the Naga and Kuki sub-tribes only by their distinct names could be "simply considered and treated by the local people as an attempt to disintegrate the entire community."

After taking note of the Outer Manipur MP's statement, the then Union Law Minister Hari Vinayak Pataskar said there was a difference between Assam and Manipur in the matter of description of the Kuki and Naga tribes - in Assam, all sub-tribes of Kuki have been shown under the heading Any Kuki Tribe, while in Manipur all these have been shown separately.

"That is the only difference. There is no ground for suspecting that something unfair is being done to them because of the description of these tribes. It is done according to the recommendation of the state government and the Backward Classes Commission and as such, there is no discrimination," the then Union law minister said, according to the affidavit which enclosed the relevant portion of the Lok Sabha debates from that time.

"It is therefore clear that when the Amendment Act of 1956 was enacted, no sub-tribe was left out. Each and every sub-tribe in Manipur was carefully and individually enlisted by parliament by the Amendment Act of 1956. Therefore, Mr Paolenlal Haokip who was born on 23rd June, 1974 was not certainly born in India or otherwise he is not an Indian citizen," the affidavit said.

Thadou tribe organisations linked to Michael Lamjathang Haokip and the Meitei community have been alleging that the current Manipur crisis is the result of bringing back Any Kuki Tribes in Manipur's ST list in 2003. They say anyone can become Any Kuki Tribes in Manipur and enjoy ST benefits due to the lack of mechanisms for identification, leaving a wide gap for illegal immigrants to misuse the category.

The Manipur government under former chief minister N Biren Singh in February 2023 wrote to the Tribal Affairs Ministry to remove Any Kuki Tribes from the ST list, a move that would need parliament approval. The ministry responded with queries to the state, and the state has since responded with answers to the ministry, state government sources said. They said the matter should be taken up in parliament next if the Tribal Affairs Ministry has no more queries to ask the state on removing Any Kuki Tribes from the ST list.

The Manipur violence began in May 2023, three months after the state made a move against the Any Kuki Tribes category. Meitei leaders have accused Paolienlal Haokip, who belongs to this category, of instigating people with misinformation just before violence began.