For a litre of petrol
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 22 , 2013 -
Himself a shrewd politician, who succeeded Joseph Stalin and pushed the then Soviet Union further into the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) was quoted to have said, 'Politicians are same all over.
They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river' in the August 22, 1963 edition Chicago Tribune in connection with the construction of a bridge in Belgrade.
Though the comment dated back to 1963, the basic nature and character of the politicians remains the same everywhere, and this is what sets them apart from the rest of the human race.
Give to give an example, even as the supply of commodities to Manipur remained blocked since July 8 due to a massive landslide at Phesema in Nagaland, thus, resulting in sky-rokecting prices of essential commodities in the State, Randeep Singh Surjewala, the National Spokesperson of All India Congress Committee (AICC), Northeast in-charge, was here on July 18 last with the audacity of giving assurance to the suffering people that the controversial National Food Security scheme would soon be implemented to benefit the people of Manipur as well.
He even went to the extent of claiming that about 23,70,000 people out of the total 27,21,000 population of Manipur, which is 95 percent of the population, are to be benefitted by the Scheme.
This is what we would like to call the height of political hypocrisy, even more worst than promising to construct bridge where there is no river.
Interestingly, apart from some politicians who could be bracketed together with the like of Randeep Singh Surjewala when it comes to making promises, none of the suffering people have ever spoken or questioned how food security is going to be possible in a dependent-State like Manipur where frequent road blockages, either from imposition of bandh/blockade or from natural calamities like landslide, are so common, thus, cutting off the supply lines for days, weeks and months, and consequently, leading to steep hike in prices of essential commodities in the markets.
More than any promise of food security, what the Government actually needs to do in Manipur during times of crisis like the present one is to control the prices of essential commodities and save the poor people from the avarice of black marketers.
Unfortunately, here too, the same suffering people seem to have no voice to raise against the failure of the State Government to regulate the price of essential commodities in the market and they go on with their life as if nothing really happened.
On the other hand, after the initial euphoria, the suffering public as well as the State Government conveniently forget the need for developing National Highway 37 (Imphal-Jiribam Road) or the historic Old Cachar Road, locally known as Tongjei Maril, connecting Imphal and Assam's Cachar district as alternative supply routes of the State until something unwanted happens along National Highway 2 (Imphal-Dimapur Road).
Well, with the mind of the majority of the people in Manipur preoccupied with the thought of rushing to the nearest petrol pump to stand in the queue to get a litre of petrol at the word 'bandh', 'blockade' or 'landslide', perhaps, it would be too much to expect anything better than their present lot of listening to politicians who promise to build bridge where there is no river.
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