Manipur Violence: Rajkumar Kaiku resigns as primary member of BJP

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Rajkumar Kaiku also known as Somendra has resigned as the primary member of BJP party.

Kaiku, who has acted in over 400 films, including two Kuki movies, submitted his resignation letter to the leadership of the state unit party even as its top leaders requested him to reconsider his stance.

A resident of Thangmeiband area in Imphal West district, Kaiku contested the last Lok Sabha polls as an Independent candidate in 2019 and later joined BJP in November 2021.
Being a celebrated film personality, Kaiku garnered huge crowds for the saffron party during canvassing in the last state assembly polls held in March last year and the party grabbed absolute majority in crucial polls by grabbing 32 seats in the 60-member house.

“My priority is ‘public first and party second’ for which I applied my mind to incline with the public in these hard times," Kaiku said.

“It is disheartening to notice that the government is yet to take up proactive measures to resolve the unceasing public disorder besetting the state for more than four months now,” said Kaiku.

Expressing his incongruity to serve the people at his own free will if he works under a political party, Kaiku said “I applied my mind to quit BJP”.

“To be honest, I joined 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 under Chief Minister N Biren Singh.

With this in mind, I thought the central leaders would act swiftly over the ongoing issue and put an end to the conflict. But, the central leaders seem like paying no attention to the pain and misery of the people and they were against every expectation of the people,” he said.