Stop the juvenile war of words : Manipur deserves better
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 22, 2021 -

This is not at all amusing. And why has the blame game suddenly picked up speed in the last one day or two?

The answer must be clear to all those who have been following the spat of words between the BJP and the Congress closely but the interesting question is, will it help the people and Manipur in any way?

More importantly are the people at all concerned with the verbal duel between the two principal political parties at this stage when they are reeling under the Covid induced restrictions since April 30?

Why can't the two just shut up and concentrate on the work to be done? Or is this asking for too much from the political leaders of the day?

This is certainly not the time to be launching verbal diatribes against each other, but to work together and see how the impact of the pandemic can be lessened.

So even as the two major political parties went hammer and tongs against each other, Manipur recorded one of its highest positivity rate on June 20, with 11.3 percent.

Every single day the positive cases have been surging in three digit figures mostly over the 500 mark with deaths in the two digit mark. This is surely not the time to be throwing brick bats at each other but to sit down and seriously think how to help the people. And the matter at hand is not a joke.

This is a global pandemic and Manipur is passing through one of its worst phases and as political leaders one should have realised that the need is to look beyond the daily increase in positive cases and deaths and see how to put the economic activities of the people back on trail once situation improves.

Has any thought been given to this?

The Ima Keithels have been closed for over one year, school vans and buses have been off the road, all tutorial and private tuition classes have been suspended for over a year and the pandemic has spelt the death knell of numerous small time business houses such as the leikai grocery stores, the leikai tea stalls etc.

Isn't this the time that political leaders of the day, cutting across party divide, should be sitting down and discussing ways on how to help revive these small business houses once situation normalises?

The Class X and Class XII board examinations have been cancelled and while BOSEM and COHSEM and the Government appointed officials have been tasked to work out the strategy to evaluate the students, how about the fate of the students in the lower classes?

This does not mean that the Government is expected to evaluate the young students, but shouldn't some mechanisms be spelt out, especially for Government schools to follow?

This is the time when political leaders, political parties and others concerned should be sitting down to discuss all these instead of trying to go one up against each other.

This is shameful to say the least. The Government, the different political parties and all concerned should also take note that the daily positivity rate continues to be high, very high.

Even as the war of words ensue between the two principal political parties, Manipur witnessed a high of 15.55 positivity rate on June 21.

This means out of every 100 persons test more than 15 persons tested positive and in the face of such a grave situation, it is in extremely bad taste to see, read and even file reports on the verbal duel between the Congress and the BJP.

Grow up and look beyond your immediate nose is a message that should be rung out to these people.