Our Correspondent
Imphal, June 17 (EMN): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government in Manipur suffered a huge blow on Wednesday after three of its sitting MLAs resigned from the party and joined the Congress, while six other MLAs withdrew their support.
The N Biren Singh government is now been reduced 30 MLAs in the 60-member assembly.
Three BJP MLAs who joined the Congress are Samuel Jendai (Tamenglong A/C), TT Haokip (Henglep A/C) and S Subhaschandra (Naoriya Pakhanglakpa A/C).
Without mentioning the reason behind the move, the BJP legislators told reporters that they have not only resigned from the primary membership of the party but also from the state legislative assembly.
Four MLAs of National People’s Party (NPP), who withdrew support to the coalition government, are Y Joykumar Singh (Dy CM), L Jayantakumar Singh, N Kayasii and Letpao Haokip. Likewise, Trinamool’s lone MLA Robindro and Independent MLA Asab Uddin, who were with the government since its formation, also withdrew their support.
Congress has 20 MLAs after one of its members was disqualified while another disqualification case is pending against seven other members. However, it claimed the effective strength of the party is 27.
In the 2017 assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party with 28 MLAs but BJP, which has 21 members, formed the government with the support of NPP (4), Naga People's Front (4), LokJansakti (1),Trinamool (1) and Independent (1). The strength of NDA government later rose to 40 MLAs after Congress legislator Shyamkumar Singh defected to BJP, and seven more Congress MLAs followed suit.