Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his first visit to the troubled Manipur state where at least 260 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in two years.
Manipur in the northeast has been bitterly divided since May 2023, when violence broke out between the mainly Hindu Meitei majority and the largely Christian Kuki community.
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The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people who are still living in makeshift camps set up by the government.
“In order to bring life back on track in Manipur, the government of India is making all possible efforts,” Modi told a gathering of thousands in Churachandpur, a Kuki-dominated town, on Saturday.
“I promise you today that I’m with you. The government of India is with the people of Manipur,” Modi said, while also appealing “to all groups to take the path of peace for realising their dreams.”
Modi was also scheduled to address a rally at Imphal, the Meitei-dominated capital of the state.
The Hindu nationalist leader last visited the state, bordering Myanmar and 1,700km (1,050 miles) from New Delhi, in 2022. He inaugurated development projects worth more than $960m, including five highways and a new police headquarters.
Manipur’s former chief minister, N Biren Singh, from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resigned in February after criticism that he failed to stop the bloodshed there. The state of nearly three million people has since been ruled directly from New Delhi.
Tensions between Meiteis and Kukis, rooted in competition for land and government jobs, have long simmered in the region. Rights groups accuse political leaders of fuelling the divisions for their own gain.
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Modi’s visit to Manipur is part of a three-day tour that also includes Assam, which borders Bangladesh, and Bihar, India’s third-most populous state with at least 130 million people.
Bihar is a key electoral battleground ahead of polls slated for October or November, the only state in India’s northern Hindi-speaking heartland where Modi’s BJP has never ruled alone.
It is also India’s poorest, and Modi was set to unveil investments worth $8bn, a package that includes agricultural projects, rail links, road upgrades and an airport terminal.
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