India’s parliament has authorized a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government by an alliance of opposition parties to force the Hindu nationalist leader to address in detail concerns about ethnic clashes in a northeastern state.
On Wednesday, a member of the Congress opposition party introduced a motion of no confidence.
The no-confidence vote will not impact the stability of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ‘s resounding 301-member majority in the lower house of parliament’s 542 seats.
Instead, the opposition wants to discuss the violence in the remote, BJP-ruled state of Manipur, where more than 130 people have died and 60,000 have been displaced since it started in early May.
While Mr Modi has dispatched extra soldiers to the area to stop the fighting between the Metei and Kuki ethnic groups, he has come under fire for remaining nothing about the rising violence.
That changed last week when he denounced the mob-style sexual assault of two Kuki women in the state, which was filmed and made national headlines throughout India.
Despite Mr Modi’s assurance that “no guilty person will be spared,” critics claimed that his intervention in the crisis came too late and disgraced his Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs Manipur.
Mr Modi’s administration, facing a national election by May 2024, views the ethnic tensions in the 3.2 million-people state as a rare security and political failure.
He will have to address the no-confidence motion as the head of the government before it is put to a vote.
The government has provided a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah stating that his ministry is in charge of internal security.
The leader of the main opposition Congress party, Shashi Tharoor, stated that the government needs to spend time responding to inquiries regarding Manipur.
“Everyone knows Manipur has witnessed horrendous loss of lives in violence, sexual assault and displacement. How can this not be the main agenda?” Mr Tharoor told Reuters.
