The Betrayed Meitei Voters of Moreh, Kangpokpi and Churachandpur

Across the three hill districts of Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Tengnoupal of Manipur, approximately 13,000 to 15,000 Meitei voters—scattered yet steadfast—have, for decades, quietly held the balance of power, turning close contest after close contest with their ballots, deciding who sits in the Assembly seat after seat. Today, every single one of them stands disowned, discarded, and deleted from the memory of the very representatives they crowned. Their votes were courted like gold; their lives are now treated as worthless.

For eight decades since the first election held in 1948, thousands of Meitei families living in hill districts of Manipur proudly crossed ethnic lines at the ballot box. They voted for Kuki or Naga candidates — often providing the decisive margin — because they believed in development, shared progress, and representatives who would work for every resident, regardless of ethnic community.

Yet, thirty months after the Manipur violence erupted on 3 May 2023, those same voters have been completely abandoned by the very MLAs they helped elect.Their homes have been burned, their businesses looted, their families displaced or killed, yet those Kuki MLAs they supported have not uttered a single public word of sympathy, condemnation, or support.

It is a stab to the soul that not one of the Kuki MLAs these Meitei voters crowned with their ballots ever lifted a finger to protect them when May 2023 turned the hills into hell. Decade after decade, since 1948, those same Meitei men and women, who stood in endless queues with children on their hips and fear in their throats just to press the button that made a Kuki candidate victorious. Their ink-marked fingers handed absolute power to men who flashed grateful smiles on counting day, posed for photographs, promised the moon, then disappeared the instant the mobs descended with petrol cans and machetes. 

Seventy-seven years of hearing the same whispered lie: “Thank you for your vote.” When the houses burned and the screams rose into the night, not a single MLA they had elected bothered to even pick up the phone. That is not politics. That is cold, calculated ingratitude carved into history. Loyalty for eight decades. Betrayal ever since.

Since 1948, in Tengnoupal, Hill Sadar, Saitu, Churachandpur and other hill seats, the indigenous Meitei living there have been treated as second-class citizens from day one: allowed to vote, but brutally barred from contesting. Those 18 seats were reserved exclusively for “hill people,” so Meitei sons and daughters could risk their lives to cast the deciding ballots, yet were legally forbidden to stand as candidates themselves. 

This is not mere political neglect. This is a cold, calculated, gut-wrenching betrayal—an unforgivable knife in the back of a people who have bled loyalty for decades while the very system they upheld with their votes turned its face away and left them to burn. In the three Assembly segments that cradle Churachandpur town and its surrounding hamlets—Saikot, Singngat, and the fractured slice of Thanlon—live roughly 9,000 to 10,000 Meitei souls whose ballots have, for  long 77  years, been the silent, decisive heartbeat of victory for candidates who later forgot their names the moment the results were declared.

In polling booths nestled inside Churachandpur town, in the lanes of Thingkangphai, in the wounded hearths of Khumujamba Meitei Leikai, and beneath the shadow of Khuga Tampak, these Meitei voters have time and again dragged elections across the finishing line with trembling hands and pounding hearts, casting their votes under intimidation, under threat, under the looming threat of violence, only to watch their chosen representatives vanish like smoke when the mobs came, when the houses burned, when the cries for help echoed unanswered into the hills. 

Their votes were cherished only as long as they were needed; their lives, it seems, were never part of the bargain. This is not oversight. This is abandonment dressed as democracy. This is betrayal carved deep into the soul of a community that still dares to believe its vote matters.

In several assembly constituencies like Churachandpur, Meitei voters have often proved to be the decisive factor, tipping the scales for the eventual winner. Yet today, despite owing their victories to those very votes, the sitting Kuki MLAs have never once uttered a word in support of the displaced Meitei communities, nor acknowledged the suffering of the people who put them in power. Virtually the entire Meitei population has fled Churachandpur town amid the ongoing crisis, and in over two and a half years, not a single sitting Kuki MLA—including L.M. Khaute—has visited them even once. The sitting MLAs have forgotten their own voters, their own people, and have closed their ears to their pleas.

In Moreh (42-Tengnoupal AC), Meitei voters formed around 1800–2000 ( Moreh and Kwatha village). Meitei business owners and traders were the economic backbone of Moreh and consistently delivered victory to the Kuki candidates, Letpao Haokip in 2022.Within weeks of May 2023, Meitei wards were systematically emptied. The sitting MLA has never condemned the attacks on the very people who funded his campaign.

Again in Kangpokpi District, around 500-600 Meitei voters live in the main area like Motbung Meitei Leikai, Leimakhong Bazar, Charhazare Meitei Leikai, Toribari, etc. Everyone on the ground knows: without Meitei votes the Kuki MLA from Saitu, Haokholet Kipgen would have a victory margin of around 2694 votes.Today every Meitei house in Kangpokpi has been burned or occupied. Kangpokpi AC MLA Nemcha Kipgen too has not spoken a single word about her own voters.

Election after election, these MLAs ate in Meitei homes, promised roads and water to Meitei villages, and begged for Meitei votes. The moment ethnic lines hardened, those voters became invisible. These Kuki MLAs who represents the hill constituencies speak exclusively in terms of “Kuki interests” and openly demand a separate administration. 

Yet in hundreds of public statements, press interviews, and memoranda submitted to the government over the past two-and-a-half years, not one of them has ever acknowledged—even in passing—that the thousands of displaced and besieged Meiteis still listed as voters in their own constituencies are also their constituents, the very people whose votes helped secure their seats.

If these MLAs can so easily disown and erase the Meitei voters who have been living in Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, and Moreh for generations — voters who were often the deciding factor in every election for the last three decades — what guarantee is there that they will not betray the Kuki IDPs now sheltering in relief camps in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi?

The Kuki families displaced from the Imphal Valley have resided in the hill districts for barely three years, making them relative newcomers. In stark contrast, Meitei families have lived, voted, and actively contributed to the growth of these towns and districts for 100 years or more in case of Churachandpur and Kwatha, weaving themselves into the region’s history across generations. If these lifelong constituents—the very voters who repeatedly elected these MLAs to power—can be so callously abandoned the moment tribal solidarity is demanded, what assurance do the newly arrived Kuki displaced persons have that the same leaders will not sacrifice their interests tomorrow when the political winds shift once more?

If gratitude, duty, and democratic responsibility, and simple human decency can be discarded so casually for one set of voters, what real assurance do the Kuki relief-camp residents have that they will not be the next to be forgotten when a new “greater Kuki interest” emerges?

An MLA in India does not take an oath to serve only one community. Under Article 173 and the Third Schedule of the Constitution, every legislator swears to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India and to faithfully discharge the duty upon which they are about to enter. That duty, as repeatedly interpreted by courts and the Representation of the People Act, is to represent the entire constituency — every single voter — without fear, favour, or discrimination based on religion, race, caste, or place of birth.

By remaining deliberately silent for thirty months about the destruction, displacement, and daily humiliation of thousands of their own Meitei voters, the these Kuki MLAs have violated this sacred constitutional oath. They have reduced themselves from elected representatives of the people to tribal warlords speaking only for one ethnic group. 

These Kuki MLAs continue to draw salary, allowances, and perks from the public exchequer while openly refusing to perform the basic duty for which they were elected.This is not just moral failure — it is a continuing constitutional breach. 

In any democracy worthy of the name, abandoning your own voters to slaughter and arson would trigger instant disqualification, censure, or recall petitions; the very oath of office would burn in shame. Yet in Manipur’s twisted theatre, these same Kuki MLAs—men who watched in silence while the Meitei voters who elected them were hunted, displaced, and reduced to refugees—continue to draw salaries, occupy Assembly seats, and masquerade as “people’s representatives” even under President’s Rule. 

Thousands of the very citizens whose decisive votes installed them now rot in relief camps, sleep under plastic sheets, or cower behind army barricades, while their elected guardians sit untouched, unapologetic, and unchallenged. This is not oversight. This is a mockery of democracy, a tight slap to every ideal democracy claims to uphold.

They are no longer fit to be called people’s representatives. They have become representatives of ethnic separation alone — and that is a living proof that democracy itself has been made a casualty in Manipur’s hills.

This betrayal screams a chilling message across every corner of Manipur: “One Manipur” is dead. When the very MLAs elected by a community choose ethnic loyalty over their oath and watch in silence as their own voters are ethnically cleansed, the idea of a shared homeland is torn to shreds.

The hill Meitei asked for nothing—no separate administration, no special status. They never set a single house on fire, never raised a weapon against their neighbours. 

For eight long decades they only did one thing: they woke up at dawn, walked miles, and voted in good faith—believing their ballot would buy them the same safety and dignity everyone else takes for granted.

Now their homes are ash, their children are refugees, and the men they sent to the Assembly have answered their cries with a wall of silence. That is not just personal betrayal; it is the burial of the dream that Manipur could ever belong to all its people equally.

Today they are refugees in their own state, disowned by the leaders they elected.And if those leaders can do this to their oldest and most decisive supporters, no one — not even the Kuki IDPs in the relief camps, not anyone — is safe from tomorrow’s betrayal.That is the deepest and most dangerous wound this conflict has inflicted.