When is the right time and situation for PM's visit ?
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 12, 2024 -

"It is not a question of the PM visiting the state or not. The coming of the PM depends on the situation".

This statement has once again shown how hapless chief minister N Biren Singh is in dealing with the touching issue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failing to visit the tiny northeastern Indian state which has been roiled by an unprecedented ethnic conflict since May 3 last year.

Coming as it just two days after Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi had made an appeal to the Prime Minister to visit Manipur and listen to the people and the subsequent assurance given a day after by BJP in-charge of Manipur Dr Ajeet Gopchade that the Prime Minister will soon come to Manipur with a solution to the ongoing crisis, this statement of the Manipur chief minister is also an indication of his cluelessness to what is going around him and how utterance of "unrestrained and unmeasured words" could result in backlashes that he might not have expected.

If the chief minister felt that the failure of the Prime Minister to visit Manipur, which has so far witnessed loss of hundreds of precious human lives and displacement of thousands of families, is a non-issue, then one could safely conclude that the BJP-led governments both in the state and at the centre are yet to realise the magnitude of the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

But most importantly, if the question of Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the strife-torn state or not is going to depend on the 'situation’, then everyone can rest assured that it is not going to happen anytime soon regardless of the assurance given by BJP in-charge of Manipur Dr Ajeet Gopchade, simply because the road to peace and normalcy is still fraught with dangers as bridges are yet to be built to facilitate communication between the two warring communities.

This bring us to the question of when is the right time or the right situation for the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Manipur, which has been burning for more than 14 months now With hundreds of precious human lives lost and thousands of families rendered homeless.

It is true that the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not going to resolve the over 14-month long ethnic crisis in Manipur at once and bring lasting peace in the state.

In fact, the Prime Minister’s visit at this juncture after everything unimaginable, which could have been prevented in time, had happened may infuriate the people even more.

So, by downplaying the prospect of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Manipur, chief minister Biren may have thought it proper to give credit to the Prime Minister when he said, "What is being done in Manipur right now - security measures, relief work, development, peace talks between both communities (Kuki and Meetei) - are all happening under the leadership of the Prime Minister".

But the bitter truth is that the outcome of security measures, relief work, development, peace talks between warring communities that are supposedly happening under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not been seen nor felt by the people on the ground.

This only goes to show that the Prime Minister has not done the job properly.

In such a situation, chief minister N Biren Singh definitely needs to be little more tactful than saying "The coming of the Prime Minister depends on the situation" in answering the million-dollar question over the failure of the Prime Minister to take time off from his busy schedule of foreign trips and election campaign for paying a visit to the ethnic violence ravaged Manipur, even if the long overdue visit is not that important now, when Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi had already done so three times.