ISBT : Inaugurated and now a public toilet
Demeaning the chair of the PM
- Sangai Express Editorial :: October 12 , 2013 -

Prime Minister inaugurating the Inter State Bus Terminus on Dec 3 2011 :: Pix - David M Mayum

Nonsense - A term which has become famous or infamous, depending on which side of the fence one sits, after Rahul Gandhi trashed the Union Cabinet Ordinance to nullify the ruling of the Supreme Court, which laid down that any sitting Member of Parliament or Member of Legislative Assembly should be immediately disqualified in the event of being convicted by a Court of the land.

Wonder what term the Gandhi scion would use if he were to witness the present state of the Inter-State Bus Terminus at Khuman Lampak, which was inaugurated amid much hype and publicity on December, 3, 2011 by none other than the Prime Minister of the country, Dr Manmohan Singh and Chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi.

The 'Nonsense' outburst drew a slew of criticism, especially from the principal Opposition party, the BJP, which interpreted it as demeaning the chair of the Prime Minister.

Stretch this line of thought a little more and wouldn't the present state of the ISBT at Khuman Lampak also amount to demeaning the chair of the Prime Minister, since a project which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister has today been literally turned into an open defecating place, a public toilet.

Wouldn't this also amount to insulting the presence of the UPA Chairperson during the inauguration ceremony ? Inaugurated on December 3, 2011 and fast forward by nearly two years and what has ISBT become ? Far from handing it over to the Transport Department and throwing it open to the public, for all practical purposes this project today has been reduced to a public toilet, where anyone can defecate in the open without much ado.

Practically comes very close to demeaning the chair of the Prime Minister, after all how can a project which was inaugurated by the first among equals at the Centre be reduced to such a messy state ? The Sangai Express had already written on how the inauguration of the ISBT has been reduced to a farce, but words escape us to describe the present state of the ISBT.

If Rahul Gandhi can be lampooned for demeaning the chair of the Prime Minister with his 'nonsense' outburst then it should also stand that the Congress Government here has also demeaned the chair of the Prime Minister by letting a project inaugurated by the Prime Minister to literally turn into a public toilet ! Taken up under funding from the North East Council, the work of constructing the ISBT was entrusted to the State PWD, which then handed the work over to M/S Avantika.

After being at the stage of 'construction going on' for years, the State Government decided that the project was ripe for inauguration during the visit of the Prime Minister and the UPA Chairperson on December 3, 2011.

Inaugurated but yet to be opened or handed over to the Transport Department.

What term would one use, when the ISBT is finally opened for the public to use ? Handing and taking over ? Looks more like a case of putting the cart before the horse.

Inauguration usually comes after the handing and taking over process, but this was something which was neatly side stepped by the then Congress led SPF Government.

Maybe it was the compulsion of electoral politics that made the State Government to come to the decision that the ISBT should be inaugurated by none less than the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi as December 3, 2011 was just a few months away from the election to the 10th Assembly.

This seemed to work, if one looks at the figure of 42 Congress MLAs in the 10th Assembly, but in the process the State Congress Government has managed to give a new definition to the term of demeaning the chair of the Prime Minister.

Not only has the inauguration become a farce but this has been compounded by the utter failure to maintain the project after December 3, 2011.