Rajya Sabha nominations: Manipur BJP candidate has early links with RSS

The Titular King of Manipur – the last of a 2,000-year-old dynasty — Ningthou Leishemba Sanajaoba, who is the BJP’s Rajya Sabha nomination from the state, has links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood.

“I used to study in Bal Vidya Mandir which was indirectly run by the RSS. At the time, RSS elders would visit frequently and share their thoughts with us,” Sanajaoba told the The Indian Express in an earlier interview.

Living in a palace that was once the seat of the power of the Kangleipak kingdom, the king would rarely make public appearances – spotted only in cultural festivals or weddings which he would be called to preside over. Over the years, these appearances reduced further till 2014, when the BJP came to power at the Centre.

That year, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat invited Sanajaoba to preside over a conference that he was attending and the two have reportedly been in close touch since. In the run up to the 2017 Assembly elections, Sanajaoba shared the state with then BJP president Amit Shah at the latter’s maiden rally in the state. In a first ever for a member of Manipur’s royal family, the king had endorsed a political party. He later attended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally, where he delivered his first-ever public speech.

The King’s personal secretary Shiba Luwang had told The Indian Express in an earlier interview said the BJP had accorded the respect to Sanajaoba that earlier Congress governments had never. “For the past 15 years, governments ignored His Highness and he was never called for an event. But after Modiji became Prime Minister, every BJP leader who visited Imphal – whether it was the PM himself or BJP ministers – would visit the King in his palace,” Luwang had said.

Former Chief Minister Ibobi Singh’s Congress government had also made a bid to take over the palace and convert it into a museum, a move later scuttled after protests. When the NDA formed the government at the Centre, Union Minister of Development of North Eastern Region, Jitendra Singh, had Sanajaoba that the office of the king as well as the palace would be protected.