Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Manipur on November 30 for just one hour to lay the foundation stone of the National Sports University and grace as the chief guest to the closing function of the state-sponsored Sangai festival.
Mr. Modi, who will arrive in the afternoon by helicopter, will go to Kohima, the capital of Nagaland the same afternoon to participate in the Hornbill festival the next day.
There is no official programme as yet to have a separate meeting with Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, senior civil, police and army officials.
BJP sources in Imphal said that Mr. Modi is likely to inaugurate the newly-constructed building on the BJP campus. The state unit BJP is making preparations to accord him a grand reception.
Police has beefing up security measures to ensure that there is no law and order problem. The state government fears that if there are insurgency-related violence, Mr. Modi may be advised to skip Manipur visit.
A students' organisation has launched a signature campaign demanding that Mr. Modi should publicly announce a probe into the “Rs. 224 crore scam”, during his stop-over in Imphal.
The whopping amount was sanctioned and spent in the name of clearing water hyacinth in the Loktak lake.
Meanwhile the Maoist Communist Party, an outlawed underground organisation, has called a general strike for 17 hours in Manipur. Indications are that as in the past other underground organisations in the state are likely to declare their own general strikes to jeopardise the public functions.
