Seeking a date with PM Modi : Bleeding Manipur
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 20, 2024 -

Yet again, some MLAs with 12 from the BJP, are understood to have sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a written intimation seeking the appointment was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office on July 16.

The MLAs from the BJP include the Speaker of Manipur Assembly marking the absence of Chief Minister N Biren Singh in the list of those seeking the meeting with the Prime Minister.

Early days yet but once again the very act of seeking an audience with the Prime Minister after more than 14 months of the ethnic violence erupting on May 3, 2023 has brought the focus back on Narendra Modi.

This after Chief Minister N Biren, not so long ago, sought to rubbish the claims of the Congress that the Prime Minister has not spoken a single word on the Manipur crisis, picking out what the Prime Minister had to say on the floor of Parliament after the nude parade of some girls went viral on the social media.

The Chief Minister also took pains to remind the people that Manipur figured in the Prime Minister’s speech from the Red Fort on August 15, last year.

Earlier before this, the Chief Minister had also stated that the visit of the Prime Minister would depend on the circumstances.

Manipur must have noted the points spelt out by the Prime Minister, but the fact remains that in the last 14 months, or after Manipur went up in flames on May 3 evening of 2023, Narendra Modi has not granted an audience to any of the political leader of Manipur.

The visit of the Prime Minister to the trouble torn State at this point of time is crucially important, but look beyond this and far from confirming whether the first among equals of the Union Council of Ministers would visit Manipur or not, it is important to digest the fact that no one from Manipur has been granted the opportunity to present the case of the people and the place before the Prime Minister.

It is against this backdrop that some MLAs from Manipur, including 12 from the BJP are reported to have sought a meeting with the Prime Minister and while one has to wait to see what transpires, Manipur and her people have to accept the reality that without the intervention of Delhi there is nothing much that Imphal can do.

This point should also be looked against the backdrop of the appeal made by the Senapati District Students’ Association (SDSA) to remove the checkpost set up by Kuki ‘volunteers’ at Gamgiphai on the Imphal-Dimapur line.

One a communication to the PMO seeking an audience with the Prime Minister and another an appeal to the State Government to get the check post at Gamgiphai removed and clearly the mess that Manipur is in today need not be over stressed.

And even as SDSA urged Imphal to get the checkpost removed and MLAs, including 12 from the BJP, are seeking an audience with the Prime Minister, Imphal witnessed LPG distributors sitting on dharna against the unbearable monetary demand as well as the failure of the Sekmai Bottling Plant to supply them the needed filled LPG cylinders.

The protest at Imphal was about the LPG distributors and just about 52 kilometres from Imphal teaching and non-teaching staff of Kakching Khunou College were constrained to stage a sit-in protest against the unbearable monetary demands.

Not the first time that this column has touched on the growing trend of serving monetary demands and one wonders how seriously the Government has taken note of this reality.

‘No objections against handing out donations that we can afford,’ is the line maintained by an executive member of the Kakching Khunou College Employees Welfare Association and the profundity of this line should not be lost on anyone.

The question is, is there anything to suggest that there is a Government in place ?

Top this off with the written submission of the Consortium of Manipur Petroleum Products Transporters’ Fraternity to the Prime Minister to either stop extortion on the Imphal-Jiribam Highway or make alternative arrangement and clearly everything that can go wrong with a place seems to have gone wrong here. Something has to give and the Government at Imphal must acknowledge the reality instead of shadow boxing with the Congress, particularly after the Lok Sabha elections debacle here.

To come back to the opening lines of this commentary what are the points that the MLAs who have sought an appointment with the Prime Minister would like to highlight ?

This is important to the people.