NEW DELHI: India’s parliament on Wednesday authorised a no-confidence vote against Narendra Modi’s government by an alliance of opposition parties, to force the prime minister to address in detail concerns about ethnic clashes in Manipur, a state in the north-east.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a clear majority of 301 members in the 542-seat lower house of parliament, so the no-confidence vote will not affect its stability. The opposition instead wants to trigger a debate about violence in the remote, BJP-ruled Manipur state, where more than 130 people have been killed and 60,000 displaced since early May.

Approving the opposition motion, lower house speaker Om Birla said he would soon decide when the debate and vote would take place. The ethnic tensions in the small state of 3.2 million people are seen as a rare security and political failure by Modi’s government, which will face a national election by May next year.

Further incidents of arson and the destruction of some abandoned houses, government offices and vehicles by armed mobs were reported from two districts of Manipur on Wednesday.

Opposition parties have disrupted the monsoon session of parliament which began last week, to demand a detailed statement by Modi on Manipur in parliament, followed by a debate..

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2023