Strange predicament for turncoats in Manipur polls
Source: The Sangai Express / PTI

Imphal, February 26 2017: They were known to be die hard supporters of their respective parties but just ahead of Manipur elections they switched sides and were now faced with a strange predicament of explaining their stand to the voters.

The turncoats contesting on tickets of either Congress or BJP, for the forthcoming Assembly polls, were facing a peculiar situation, with party workers in certain parts unwilling to work for them in the polls.

"Why should we work for a person who has come from Congress? We have been fighting all our life against the Congress and its misrule," a BJP leader from Lamlei constituency said.

The Congress too was facing such a situation in some of the seats where they have fielded former BJP leaders.

They also have leaders from TMC and other parties in their list.

A section of leaders, both in the Congress and BJP, echoed, that a section of masses were apprehensive about the turncoats as till a few days back, they were busy beating trumpets in favour of their parent party.

Both the candidates list of Congress and BJP, two arch rivals in Manipur elections, have several turncoats in their lists who were earlier either with Congress or BJP or some other parties, but had switched sides just months before the forthcoming Assembly polls.

The BJP list has the names of the highest number of defectors from other parties and Congress ranks second in terms of giving tickets to turncoats.

"I joined BJP because the Congress and Manipur chief minister Ibobi Singh have been fooling the people for the last so many years.

This year too, Ibobi Singh tried to play dirty politics by bifurcating districts which led to this economic blockade and he is trying to cash on it," N Biren Singh, BJP candidate from Heingang constituency, told PTI .

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