Guwahati: Expressing displeasure with what he termed as the government’s inept handling of the current turmoil besieging Manipur as well as the murder of two young students, celebrated Manipuri film actor Rajkumar Kaiku aka Somendra has resigned as the primary member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kaiku, who has acted in over 400 films, tendered his resignation to the leadership of the state unit party on Wednesday even as its top leaders requested him to reconsider his stance.
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A resident of the Thangmeiband area in Imphal West district, Kaiku contested the last Lok Sabha polls as an Independent candidate in 2019 and later joined the saffron party in November 2021.
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Being a celebrated film personality, Kaiku garnered huge crowds for the BJP during campaigning in the last state assembly polls held in March 2022.
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Talking to the media after resigning, Kaiku said, “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 violence besetting the state for nearly five months now.”
“To be honest, 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. With this in mind, I thought the central leaders would act swiftly over the ongoing crisis and put to 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 of the state and they were against every expectation of the people,” he said.
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“I thought we shouldn’t stay silent but voice out against this ignorance. There are rules if we work under a political party and we can’t just do things at our own will. So, I decided that it would be better to leave the party and join the movement of the people. As I have left BJP, now I am a free citizen to join the people’s campaign to restore public order,” Kaiku added.
Stating that the current turmoil has dampened the pace of Manipur’s development, Kaiku appealed to all sections of society to bring an everlasting solution to the violence.