Manipur CM under fire as viral video surfaces; Congress complains to DGP

IMPHAL: The Legal Department of the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has urged the Director General of Police to take actions against the Chief Minister of Manipur after the surfacing of a clip that purportedly shows him admitting that MLAs spent many crores in the recently concluded Assembly election.

Dashing off a complaint to the DGP, Chairman of the MPCC's Legal Department S Shyam Charan stated that a short clip video being circulated through news and social media regarding the statements made by N Biren Singh has become viral on social media for many days.

“In connection with the said viral video, MPCC had already made statements through local media by requesting the concerned authorities to take legal action against the Chief Minister but no action has been taken up by the police till date,” read the complaint letter.

The video, reportedly taken during the inauguration of a 10 bedded ICU and Tele ICU Hub at the JNIMS hospital on May 3, shows the Chief Minister of Manipur stating that candidates had spent many crores in the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly Election. He even asked one of his cabinet colleagues L. Sushildro how many crores he had spent in that election.

The Chief Minister also had voluntarily admitted and publicly confirmed, in his public statement, that they (BJP MLAs) had spent crores of rupees as expenditure, which is totally against the guideline of the limit of election expenditures issued by the Election Commission of India in the recently concluded state assembly election of 2022, the MPCC wrote in its complaint.

The Congress further letter alleged that the CM justified the need to earn back money spent in the election, and for which he advised his Minister s and BJP MLAs to take around 13% to 15% of the profits earned by the private companies which are going to work in the form of contracts and developmental works in their respective assembly constituencies.

The MPCC has claimed that "the CM was promoting and justifying corruption as well as accepting the extra expenditure of huge crores of rupees in the elections by the BJP."

A link to the viral clip was also included in the complaint letter.