A Panchayat Pradhan is sent to jail
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 18 2011 -

Elangbam Ongbi Rajni is the Pradhan of Hiyanglam Gram Panchayat and the CJM Thoubal has sent her to jail under the National Security Act (NSA).

A case had been registered against her by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS) job card holders who alleged that she had misappropriated huge amounts of MGNREGS funds and had also extended financial assistance to banned groups.

The CJM, also a lady, pronounced the decision that Rajni is to be detained under the NSA and that she will be sent to jail. When the judge pronounced the verdict, Pradhan Rajni collapsed in the court room.

Is there something more than meets the eye ? There are a number of reasons, or a permutation of reasons which could have led to the conviction of Pradhan Rajni. For one thing the police could have built a watertight case with overwhelming evidence of willful abuse of authority that the judge had no option but to invoke the NSA on her and send her to jail.

It could also be that in her greed she had wrongly rubbed against the genuine rights of far too many people. And that innumerable such cases of circumstantial evidence along with proven charges of embezzlement of public funds led to her conviction.

Further it could be that her nexus with banned set ups had become glaringly obvious and that action had to be taken against her.

There is however another possibility which could have led to Rajni's conviction, and this is a far more disturbing and sinister scenario. Was Rajni a creation and then a propagator of criminalized politics ?

Having a nexus with banned groups in the present political situation in Manipur is no longer looked upon in awe by the people.

All Rajni and her lawyer had to do was present a reasonably good defence that she had been coerced into that undesirable position.

Though she could not have been acquitted, the sentence of the judge could have been milder. On the other hand if the brunt of the evidence against her had been based on abuse of money meant for MGNREGS job card holders, she could have pleaded to the judge to give her some time to return all the money. Again this could have lessened the severity of the sentence.

But did the judge see more than this ? Did she see that Rajni had mala fide intentions and that she had no qualms in brazenly flouting the established rule of law and desecrating the authority which is protected by the same law ? And coupled with this, did a well presented case file of the police lead to her undoing ?

It is the possibility that this last scenario could be true which gives the most worry.

Even if Rajni was misled and misguided, and that she was only doing 'what all others are doing' the frightening reality is that there are people willing to do anything to win an election, with the sole purpose that if he or she gets elected, he or she would straight away go about wrecking all institutions, norms and self respect that binds our society together.

It could well be that in her warped thinking Rajni might have construed that the law had taken a back seat, and that it was people like her who ruled the roost. But when the judge delivered her verdict Rajni realised she was actually going to jail and that to obtain a bail would be a difficult task.

Further she realised that her political career lay in tatters. This was when she became truly conscious of the gravity of her misdoings and collapsed in the court room.