As Manipur will elect a new assembly early next year, chief minister N. Biren Singh flew to Delhi recently for “blessings” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as senior BJP leaders to get into election -action. Speaking with Bhavna Vij-Aurora, he aired his thoughts on a range of issues such as poll preparation, interstate border disputes, a spike in the state’s Covid-19 caseload, and arrests of journalists under sedition and national security laws. Excerpts:

ON ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS: I met the prime minister, Union home -minister, party president Nadda-ji and other senior leaders. I came to Delhi to seek their blessings as I am going to the maidan and will start my campa-ign. Our commitment is to maintain peace for another five years and create jobs. The priority is to sustain a peaceful and harmonious relationship -between the people in the hills and the valley. For job creation, the focus is on encouraging entrepreneurship through start-ups and skill development, and to ensure the schemes reach the maximum number of people.

ON BORDER DISPUTES: What happe-ned between Mizoram and Assam is -unfortunate. It has never happened -before. The Union home minister is -mediating now, and the Centre will settle the dispute. It is the only way to do it. Manipur does not have any major issues with Assam, or with Nagaland. We want a peaceful solution regarding Nagalim (a sovereign Naga nation comprising Nagaland and parts of Arunachal, Assam and Manipur), but without affecting boundaries and status of the states.

ON COVID-19: A central team has gone to Manipur as the numbers are going up. The second wave has been hard to tackle. We handled the first wave successfully, but the cases started rising from April with the Delta variant. People became careless too. We have started mass -testing and vaccination. There is some vaccine hesitancy in the hills. We have involved civil society to help. Infrastructure too has improved.

ON ARRESTING JOURNALISTS: I was a journalist and jailed for a month on sedition charges. I did not take bail and told the authorities to prove the charge against me in court. I fought the case and came out. Even in the case of the two journalists (Kishorchandra Wangkhem and Erendro Leichombam), I did not go beyond the Constitution. The law of sedition exists. If it ceases to exist, I will not use it. Article 19 gives us freedom of expression, but its Clause 2 calls for maintaining morality and -decency. Our president (state BJP chief Saikhon Tikendra Singh) died of Covid. Talking about cow urine at that time and saying it didn’t help him is beyond humanity and morality. Kishore-chandra also defamed and insulted a Naga girl. If morality and decency are not maintained, then what can I do? Once the court gave bail, I was not happy with the verdict, so I imposed the National Security Act (NSA). When the Supreme Court said the NSA is wrong, he was released. There are hundreds of journalists in Manipur, why are only these two arrested every time??