Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh criticizes Tejashwi Yadav for racist comment about Himanta Biswa Sarma

The exchange between Mr. Yadav and Mr. Sarma was escalated by Mr. Yadav’s post on X, which took a swipe at Mr. Sarma as someone who wants to “gain cheap popularity and become the Chinese version of Yogi,” alluding to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Mr. Yadav did not specify if he was referring to inferior quality goods from China or the northeast region, where people have often complained of racist remarks directed towards them. In response to Mr. Yadav’s attack, Mr. Sarma defended the decision to do away with the two-hour *jumma* break and emphasized that it was not the Chief Minister’s decision but was agreed upon by all Hindu and Muslim legislators. He also highlighted that no Muslim MLA in the house raised any protest when the announcement was made, despite there being 25 Muslim MLAs in the Assam assembly out of a total of 126.

Mr. Sarma explained that the proposal to eliminate the *jumma* practice was placed before the rules committee, which unanimously agreed to drop the practice. He then accused Mr. Yadav of being racist towards the people of northeast India, and also criticized his “hypocrisy.” Referring to a past incident, Mr. Sarma questioned Mr. Yadav’s actions and urged him to implement a four-hour break in Bihar first, before criticizing others. He also cited an incident from May 2021 when a blogger from Punjab was charged by the Arunachal Pradesh government for making racial remarks against a Congress MLA, highlighting the sensitivity and consequences of such actions.

The YouTube blogger, Paras Singh, was arrested for his comments, brought to Arunachal Pradesh, and subsequently sought forgiveness for his actions. He was granted bail and allowed to return home.