Going to the polls next year : Make corruption an issue
- Sangai Express Editorial :: October 18 , 2013 -

Stability. Secularism.

Flagship programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Rural Health Mission, JNURM, etc.

These are going to be the issues on which the Congress will bank on to win the trust and confidence of the voters, come the Parliamentary election sometime next year.

Corruption, the slowdown in the economy, inflation, the sliding rupee vis-a-vis the US Dollar and of course the 'nonsense' outburst from Rahul Gandhi, Hindutva, the charisma of Narendra Modi-a no-nonsense man.

These are the issues on which the BJP will go to the people to back them. How effectively the backroom boys of the two principal parties package their agenda remains to be seen but be sure the spin doctors in the two parties must have already started their spade work to win over the voters. Interesting, it will be.

But how far will these issues have an impact on Manipur is a question worth pondering over. Most probably it may not have much of an impact, for the political dynamics here are quite different, the issues are very different.

The matter of greater import is however to study whether there will be any issue around which the voters in the two Parliamentary Constituencies will and can rally around or go against.

If the past is any indication, then it is most likely that there will be no over riding issues. The 10th Assembly election is a case in point.

All, even those who fall outside the parameters of a voter, that is the young people below the age of 18, appeared totally disillusioned with the abysmal power supply.

There were numerous instances when the whole State was paralysed with people taking to the streets to protest against the 'license to kill' given to the security forces, not only through AFSPA but also through political patronage, with the July 23, 2009 BT Road killings topping the chart.

All political parties promised that they would do away with AFSPA if voted to power, except the Congress.

Yet when election time came, it was the Congress, which kept mum on AFSPA with the baggage of numerous cases of alleged extra-judicial killings, which annihilated the other political parties, in a manner which Manipur had never witnessed earlier.

42 Congress MLAs in a House of 60, and it would do good to look at this as something beyond mere figures.

A failure of the people to articulate their grievances, genuine ones at that, in electoral politics or the Congress knowing and understanding the pulse of the public ?

The lines have more or less been drawn up in other parts of the country, especially in Delhi, but what about Manipur ?

On what issues are the people going to elect the representatives from the two Parliamentary seats ?

Why is it that corruption has never, ever been a rallying point for the people when election time comes ?

This when the price tag of a police Constable is supposed to be Rs 5 lakhs or so, Rs 15 to 20 lakhs for a police Sub-Inspector, Rs 15 lakhs for a Nurse in a Government hospital, the unholy nexus between the political class and the contractors and the list can go on.

Abysmal power supply for more than 10 years now on the trot, urban decay, fake encounters, extra-judicial killings, an entrenched coterie, where chamchagiri is the pass word to climb the ladder of success cannot and should not be seen in isolation of corruption.

Everyone seems to know this, at least from the casual conversations one has with friends, acquaintances and through the social media, yet the question remains why corruption has never been an issue whenever election time comes ?

Time for the people to put on their thinking caps and try to make a difference.

Time to take corruption out of the daily conversations and complaints and bring them to the domain of electoral politics.

With Parliamentary election sometime next year, this is the time to start working towards this.