Start with a bang and end with a whimper : Honeymoon gone sour
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 01, 2013 -
Sort of a history. The Congress could not have hoped for a better start to Twenty Twelve or 2012.
Sweeping the election to the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly with 42 MLAs in a House of 60 and suddenly it looked like Mr Okram Ibobi could do no wrong and why not.
Largely perceived to be a favourite of the people who matter in the All India Congress Committee, notably Sonia Gandhi, everything seemed perfect for the man from Thoubal Assembly Constituency.
Not only did the Congress sweep the polls in a manner never seen before in the post Statehood history of Manipur, but it also catapulted Mr Okram Ibobi into the select band of people to become the Chief Minister three times in a row and in the process eclipse the veteran Rishang Keishing as the longest serving Chief Minister of Manipur.
A mean record which will be hard to beat in the days to come. A record 42 MLAs, Chief Minister for the third consecutive time, Mr Okram Ibobi Singh towers above all his contemporaries.
However figures alone cannot be the index to judge the performance of a leader and fast forward by 10 or 11 months and the honeymoon with good fortune which started from the moment the election results started pouring in from the election office in March seems to have disappeared.
On the contrary, Manipur has signed off 2012 on a bitter note, if one takes the winter of discontent and stand offs into consideration. This is not a round up of the year just gone by but a hard look at how the Government has failed to capitalise on the huge mandate it received at the hustings.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and everything that should have gone right did not. Start with a bang and end with a whimper.
Instead of demonstrating a tough stand on the December 18, Chandel incident, the Government mistook toughness for brute force and nowhere was this more evident than the manner in which film artistes were caned and lathi-charged in front of the Chief Minister's official bungalow.
The United Naga Council may think otherwise but this was the last straw that prompted the Film Forum, Manipur and the Manipur Shumang Lila Council to impose the indefinite bandh.
The ugly fall out of the indefinite bandh is there for all to see. The molestation of a minor girl at Napetpalli on Christmas eve and the killing of two hunters at Konkang village in Kamjong sub-division of Ukhrul district may have been beyond the control of the State Government, but the sheer insensitivity of the Government came to the fore through the deafening silence it maintained.
That the three culprits of the Napetpalli incident were rounded up in no time is perhaps the only consolation for the people.
Elsewhere too the failure of the Government stands out like a sore thumb. Twenty hours of power supply was the target set by the Chief Minister on assuming charge of the Power portfolio after the new Ministry was sworn in.
It has stopped there with only a marginal improvement from the previous 3/4 hours of power supply to now 7/8 hours of power supply in a day.
The law and order situation continues to be a cause of concern with bombs and grenades underlining the rampant culture of extortion.
Instead of exhibiting any serious effort to contain these activities, the State Government continued to believe in issuing live bullets to control mob violence, best evidenced by the death of a journalist who was shot dead while covering an incident.
The beating to death of a civilian by VDF personnel in the face of the decision to recruit 2000 police Constables, perhaps sums up the warped mentality of the present dispensation.
Let better sense prevail in 2013.
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