Game of throne: playing with blockade politics
- Imphal Times Editorial :: February 10 2017 -

When almost all the people are looking forward for a change, the game players in the state has successfully diverted the aspiration of the people by drugging them with mass hysteria in the name of protecting the territorial boundary of the erstwhile kingdom.

Corruption, nepotism, human rights violation etc., has seem to be totally sideline in the upcoming 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly election.

People have now been carried away with hate feelings towards a specific organisation, which was known by almost everyone of the region that their main agenda is something that is not favoured by majority of the people.

Well at this juncture, it is worth recalling the writings of late Prof. N. Sanajaoba, at which he stated that distorting the boundary of Manipur will be a far away dream for any power as far as history of Manipur is concerned and the authority regards the merger agreement of the erstwhile kingdom to the Indian Union in 1949.

There is no denial that the prolonged economic blockade along the two national highways had made people suffered a lot.

Except for those in that organisation almost all people irrespective of their communities had criticised the blockade.

Everyone knows that this is not the first time that such economic blockades are called in the highways.

While knowing that such a blockade is a curse to the state, why the government had failed to find a solution in these 15 years and started being serious only at a time when election dates have been announced?

The fact is that the blockade, the support garner by rebel group is the fall out of the corrupt and grotesque practice by the government.

If the voters forget and sidelined the real issues and are driven by the game being played by a political party which had ruled the state for 15 years, then our future generation will surely blame us for what we the voters have done in this election.

The demand for a separate state by an underground group ensuing peace talk with the government of India is of course a serious concern for all the people here in the state.

But if one goes to the timeline of this underground group then they will definitely find that this UG is struggling hard out of frustration.

And there is no room that they succeed as peoples’ mandate is what actually required in such a journey. And working out of frustration had never succeeded.

Another speech which is worth recalling from late Prof. N. Sanajaoba is that no pan movement in the world had ever succeeded. And so the so called movement out of frustration by the armed group is also a pan movement and this will not succeed.

Then why people will allow themselves to be carried by some game players of the upcoming election putting this issue as their poll plank.

It is surprising that a spokesperson of the political party said that corruption, misgovernance is not an issue but the economic blockade and the territorial integrity is what is concerned.

This showed that the political party which had ruled the state for 15 years now is certain that without this blockade they have no other issue.

So, on second thought, one need to ponder is - who is the real architect of this blockade. A matter every voters need to think for a better Manipur.