Taking back Manipur to 1999 : Of overdraft and politics !
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 14 2019 -

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and Chief Minister N Biren must certainly be feeling the heat.

Adding to the heat is obviously the report that the State Government has incurred an overdraft of Rs 274.46 crore as a result of which the RBI has banned all Government transactions and appointments.

This certainly brings back memories of 1999, twenty years back, when overdraft, unpaid salaries and RBI ban were staple terms of the common people and were always news worthy topics.

Twenty years down the line and Manipur unfortunately finds herself in the same position again.

So overdraft and RBI ban on and while this will continue to be front page news in all the Imphal based dailies, the infighting within the BJP will be another staple diet.

Clearly enough news material for all the newspapers and local TV channels.

Reporters, specially those who cover the political beat and have contacts with the political class, will also be hard pressed to cover all the latest political developments and how the fight for power is proceeding.

Interesting time, at least for the newspapers, but cannot say if the present can really be called interesting for the people and Manipur.

The infighting has also come out in the open now, with Chief Minister N Biren acting swiftly and taking away plum portfolios from Th Biswajit (Power and PWD) and Y Joykumar (Finance).

That this is something much more than a reshuffle should be clear to all, coming as it has in the midst of the intense infighting within the BJP leaders.

What however is questionable is the wisdom of issuing a press release conveying that these portfolios have been wrested from the said two Ministers.

Much more than just the reshuffling of some key portfolios given to the said two Ministers and it looks nasty, very nasty when the new development is issued as a press release.

Also significant to note that the official order of the key portfolios being divested from Th Biswajit and Y Joykumar went viral on the social media.

Remains to be seen how the Central BJP leadership will view the political development in the State, but this does not say anything good about the BJP led Government at Imphal.

On the other hand, the Congress too must be watching the new development with keen interest.

A God send like development it must be to them and this will definitely serve as a moral booster to the State Congress, after the licking it received at the hands of the BJP in the just held Lok Sabha elections.

Important to question too, where the two coalition partners, the NPF and NPP stand at this point of time.

The NPP must be raring to hit back, for remember Y Joykumar is from the NPP.

The political development is certainly interesting and Manipur can expect to see more interesting days ahead.

Too early to say, but then the possibility of the Centre stepping in and imposing President’s Rule cannot be written off completely.

Remember 2001 when the words ‘without territorial limits’ were inserted in the ceasefire pact with the NSCN (IM) and there was no elected Government here at Imphal.