Delhi's brand of politics being played out : 'CM is co-operating' line
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 27, 2024 -

The question still stands and that is whether Imphal has the spunk and the conviction to question why the Centre has still now not bothered to inform the State Government on the status of the SoO pact ?

And this question has come not from any exercise of shooting in the dark or from the realm of speculation but from the very fact that it took none less than the Chief Minister himself to admit that there has been no official information from the Centre on the status of the SoO pact.

Something is just not right with the politics of Delhi and the reason why the admission of the Chief Minister rankles follows from the fact that while there has been no official statement on whether the pact has been extended or not, after its expiry on February 29 this year, the Chief Minister himself admitted on the floor of the Assembly that the SoO pact still stands in response to a query from Congress MLA K Ranjit on August 8 this year.

Common sense says that if a pact is not extended or renewed then its validity has expired, but it is more than obvious that this universal understanding of validity does not extend to the Kuki militants and this is where it becomes obvious that Delhi may just be more than willing to strangle Manipur with the hands of geo-politics.

This is not the time for Imphal to pussy foot the issue and raise its stand in clear cut terms before Delhi.

And as things stand now, Manipur is being given to understand that the State Government has not been kept posted on the status of the SoO pact and this is where one can see primacy being given to the push and pulls of geo-politics over the fate and continued existence of a State of the Indian Union.

Not the first time that The Sangai Express has commented on Delhi giving primacy to the need of geo-politics over a State of the Union and it is politics of this kind which will only further give more credence to the widely held belief of alienating the North East and its people.

Imphal need to rise to the occasion and ‘educate’ the ‘high browed leaders’ of New Delhi that the SoO pact is an agreement involving the Centre, the State Government and the Kuki armed groups.

Any move to sideline the State Government from the tripartite agreement cannot and should not be taken lying down and what is needed for Imphal is to have more spunk and the ability to speak out where it stands.

If Delhi is under the impression that the SoO pact should continue, then let it say so openly and not try to hoodwink Manipur with the politics of silence and indifference. That the people can see through such politics should be plain to everyone.

This is where it also becomes extremely crucial for Imphal to demonstrate that it can rise to the occasion and acknowledge that since May 3, 2023, Delhi has not done anything substantive to address the issue in Manipur.

It is time for the State BJP leadership to also question themselves on why the Prime Minister has till date refused to meet anyone from Manipur.

“With what face can I meet the Prime Minister, after the loss in the Lok Sabha elections,” is nothing but a line that could have come only from refusing to accept the reality.

The Lok Sabha election results came out on June 4, 2024 and by then Manipur had been in flames since May 3, 2023 and the Prime Minister Office could have granted an audience to the political leaders of Manipur anytime before the election results were announced.

If the Centre had demonstrated it was concerned with the violence in Manipur, then who knows, the Lok Sabha results here could have been very different with the BJP even in a position to field its own candidate in the Outer Parliamentary Constituency.

Fifteen months is 450 days of violence and like everyone else in Manipur, The Sangai Express had kept quiet for months hoping that something substantive would come from New Delhi, but the last 450 days have more than made it clear that Delhi is more concerned with its own brand of politics and in the process totally sideline the State Government on issues as crucial as keeping it updated on the status of SoO.

For days, even the position of the Chief Minister vis-a-vis the Unified Command, was kept under a veil of confusion and it was only when the official intimation from the Chief Minister’s office to the Security Advisor and the DGP on the militants build up at Jiribam, went unacknowledged that things fell into place.

This is certainly not the way to deal with a crisis which has dragged on for over 15 months and to repeat a line, ‘What did the Union Home Minister mean when he said the Chief Minister is cooperating’ on the floor of Parliament some time back ?