Expressing his anger, celebrated Manipuri film actor Rajkumar Kaiku aka Somendra on Wednesday resigned from the primary membership of the ruling BJP, accusing the state government of "inept handling of the current ethnic turmoil besieging the state as well as the brutal murder of two young students".
Kaiku, who has acted in over 400 films, including two Kuki movies, submitted his resignation letter to the state BJP leaders while the top state leaders requested him to reconsider his decision.
A resident of Thangmeiband area in Imphal West district, Kaiku contested the last Lok Sabha polls as an Independent candidate in 2019 and later joined BJP in November 2021.
Being a celebrity actor, Kaiku garnered huge crowds for the BJP during the election campaign in the last year’s state Assembly polls as the party secured absolute majority, winning 32 seats in the 60-member house.
In his resignation letter, Kaiku said that "my priority is 'public first and party second' for which I applied my mind to incline with the public in these hard times."
"It is disheartening to notice that the government is yet to take up proactive measures to resolve the unceasing public disorder besetting the state for more than four months now," he said.
Expressing his incongruity to serve the people at his own free will if he works under a political party, Kaiku said: "I applied my mind to quit BJP."
"I joined the BJP thinking that the party would bring a significant change in our state with its double engine government. Of course, it brought changes in different sectors like tourism under CM N. Biren Singh. With this in mind, I thought the central leaders would act swiftly over the ongoing issue and put an end to the conflict and trust them. But, the central leaders seem to be paying no attention to the pain and misery of the people and they were against every expectation of the people," the actor-turned-politician said.
"As I have the left BJP, now I’m a free citizen to join the people’s campaign to restore public order,” he said, while attacking the Kuki-Zo legislators and civil bodies' demand for a separate administration for their community in the state.
Meanwhile, Manipur Police, without naming the leader, said that an unruly crowd tried to attack the house of a political leader, the joint security forces repelled the crowd by firing tear gas shells.
"The unruly crowd targeted a police gypsy and burnt it, while assaulting a policeman and snatching his weapon. Manipur Police condemns such action and will take stern steps to deal with such miscreants. Combing operations are being carried out for recovery of arms and catching miscreants," the police said in a post on X.
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