Higher stakes for Congress in second phase of Manipur polls 

Of the 22 seats in the final phase, there are 11 each in the valleys and the mostly Naga-dominated hills 

The stakes for the Congress are higher than arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the second and final phase of polling for 22 Assembly seats in Manipur on March 5.

The Imphal and Jiribam Valleys together have 11 of these seats. The hills around, mostly dominated by the Nagas, account for the remaining 11 constituencies.

The Congress had won 12 of these 22 seats in the 2017 polls — eight across Imphal valley and four in the Naga-majority hills. The BJP could muster three of the second phase seats five years ago, one of them in the Naga hills.

“The people have seen through the machinations of the BJP. If the election is free and fair, we have every chance of doing better than retaining our seats,” State Congress president Nameirakpam Loken Singh said.

The Congress has a few heavyweights in this phase, led by former Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh contesting the Thoubal seat, and former State party president Gaikhangam (Nungba). But a couple of its MLAs in this phase are now BJP candidates while Md Abdul Nasir, the party’s most prominent Muslim face until recently, is the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) candidate from the Muslim-majority Lilong seat.

Muslims hold the key in at least five of the second phase valley seats, including the only one in Jiribam with a sizeable number of Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The BJP, too, is upbeat about doing much better in the phase 2 seats than in 2017. “The situation today is way different than what it was five years ago. Our development agenda has appealed to the people, a majority of whom have been benefited by our schemes,” State BJP president A. Sharda Devi said.