Enacting a farce, MPP style: Comical caricature
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 13 2020 -

No doubt about it but the Manipur People’s Party (MPP) is today a caricature of all that is comical and at the same time tragic.

Comical for the stand off that one sees within the oldest regional political party in the State is not over any difference in opinion or ideology or which way the party should proceed but over ‘misuse of Rs 5 crore’.

The term ‘misuse’ is the operative word here.

Tragic in the sense that here is a party which was once a force to reckon with and perhaps at one point of time the only party which could give the Congress a run for its money but today reduced to a caricature.

More than evident that the oldest regional political party in the State continues to be fixated with the prime plot on which its office stands just behind the historic Mapal Kangjeibung and there is nothing funny about this.

In the world of politics, numbers should not really matter that much, for numbers will come and go but what makes the drama unfolding within the MPP all that more ugly is the fact that the MPP has not been able to even convey the point that it is still a political party with a soul, which is there to pick up issues which directly impact on the lives of the people.

This is the pathetic state to which the party has been reduced to today and this is something unacceptable.

Ideally the MPP should be there as a responsible political party ready to take up issues and make itself count in the eyes of the public, but far from it, it is today known more as a party which has its office behind Mapal Kangjeibung !

So president of the MPP, O Jugindro ‘not only removed’ from the post of president of the MPP but also expelled from the primary membership of the party !!

Removed from the post of president, expelled from the primary membership of the party - This is the central committee of the party which has come out with this line, but this has only goaded O Jugindro to stick to the line that there is no question of him misusing any money of the party, leave alone the Rs 5 crore which is at the centre of the present stand off within the party.

Sticking to the earlier script which the MPP seems to have mastered, an interim president has been named in the person of L Krishnadas and suddenly there seems to be two power centres within the MPP today.

As things have transpired, either side seems to be pulling all its strength and a group of Jugindro loyalists within the MPP has refused to recognise L Krishnadas as the interim president of the party.

So technically speaking the MPP today seems to have two presidents in the persons of O Jugindro and L Krishnadas.

Nothing can be more farcical than this and the people can certainly expect to see more farcical dramas being enacted by the very members of the oldest regional political party in the State.

Tough to say when the seeds of self destruction within the MPP were sown but today here is a political party which is there as a classic example for all others to learn on how gradually a political party can dig its own grave.

And to think that this is the time when regional political parties such as the AAP and the TMC have emerged as strong players makes the plight of the MPP all that more farcical and pitiable.