Mizoram polls: Remove trust deficit, Rajnath tells Kukis and Meiteis of Manipur

Def. Min. Rajnath Singh urges Kuki & Meitei communities to resolve trust deficit through heart-to-heart conversations. He also reminded Mizoram of 1966 airstrike & highlighted improved road & rail connectivity in NE since 2014. Asserted why people need to back BJP in Mizoram.

A day after suspected Kuki extremists gunned down a Meitei police officer in Manipur, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said it was high time the two communities sat together to remove their trust deficit through heart-to-heart conversations.

Addressing the BJP’s election rally at Tipa in southern Mizoram’s Siaha district on Wednesday, he said the Manipur incidents “pained all of us” as the northeast had been very peaceful in the last nine years with insurgency having been at an ebb.

“I want to tell it honestly that no political party triggered this [Manipur] violence. A situation had developed and both communities felt insecure leading to the violence. I would like to request both communities to sit together and resolve the problem. I want them to remove the trust deficit,” Mr. Singh said.

“It is not through violence but heart-to-heart conversations that a solution to the problem can be achieved,” he said.

The Manipur crisis has been a major issue in poll-bound Mizoram where the majority Mizo community are empathising with the ethnically related Kukis. Some 12,500 Kuki people from Manipur’s Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley and peripheral areas are currently taking shelter in Mizoram.

The Mizos of Mizoram, Kukis of Manipur, and the Chins of Myanmar and Bangladesh belong to the greater Zo community who dream of a united homeland.

Beyond the ethnic issue, Mr. Singh reminded the people of Mizoram of how Aizawl was bombed during the Congress rule more than five decades ago.