The past catching up or BJPism ? State Govt under a scanner
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 13, 2014 -

A case of the past catching up or a case of the BJP Government under Narendra Modi demonstrating that it is more than keen to completely snap everything that has got anything to do with the previous Congress led Government at Delhi.

Whatever it is, in such a scenario or political climate there are bound to be different takes.

And so it is that there were different interpretations to the drastic initiative taken up by the present Government to show the door to some Governors.

Manipur has already got a taste of this, with Governor VK Duggal constrained to put in his papers after only a few months of coming here to occupy the Raj Bhawan and there is nothing much to suggest that Delhi will go in for a completely new approach in the future.

Seen against this reality the news or report carried in the September 12 issue of The Sangai Express that the State Government has come under the vigil of the Centre needs to be tackled and digested cautiously.

This is the third term of Mr Okram Ibobi as the Chief Minister of the State and he has been heading a Congress or a Congress led Government since 2002.

A feat one may add for it is never an easy task to occupy the chair of the Chief Minister for a third consecutive term, especially in a place like Manipur where no Chief Minister, before 2002, has ever completed a full term in office.

Call it good fortune or political acumen but the fact stands that the man from Thoubal has already scripted a sort of political history by not only becoming the first man to complete a full term as the Chief Minister of the State, but also as the man who has occupied the chair of the Chief Minister for the longest period of time.

That the Congress was in power at Delhi during the Chief Minister’s first two term in office may explain the good fortune part but at the same time it needs to be acknowledged that it takes more than good fortune to continue as Chief Minister for the third consecutive term.

With the Congress ignominiously biting the dust at the National hustings this year, the honeymoon with the Centre is obviously over and the report that the BJP Government at Delhi is keeping a close tab on the functioning of the State Government is in line with Mr Modi’s style of functioning.

To the Congress man or loyal Congress supporter the report that the Centre is keeping a hawk’s eye on the functioning of the State Government may seem something like a witch hunt, but to any neutral observer or those who have thrown their back behind the Central Government, it will most probably be a case of the ills of the past catching up with the present.

The latter observation is not without foundation. It is not for nothing that in the last few years that talks of graft charges have been doing the round.

There surely must be a reason why graft charges have been gaining ground all these years. Not that everything have been proved but not all can be loose talks based merely on hearsay.

Not the case of The Sangai Express to say whether the Manipur Development Society has been discharging its duties diligently or not, but it stands that numerous developmental projects being taken up in the State have already run into years.

It was amid much hype that the City Convention Centre and the Inter-State Bus Terminus were inaugurated by none less than the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, but more than two years down the line and there is nothing much to suggest that the two are anywhere near being thrown open to the public.

This should be more than enough testimony of how the Government has been run and managed.