From No Repoll to Revoke stand : Hyperbolic statement or...?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 23, 2012 -

It is clear that the transition has not only been smooth in the change of nomenclature from Nagaland People's Front to Naga People's Front but also from its earlier stand of No Repoll to the other extreme end, which has literally spelt out as Revoke The Election.

With just a one line agenda, ‘Integrating all Naga inhabited areas under one administrative unit’ the NPF has come a long way since it wrested power from the Congress in the Nagaland State Legislative Assembly election in 2004 and has been there since then, winning the election again in 2009.

Along the way the emergence of the NPF in Nagaland also saw the political obituary of the charismatic SC Jamir being scripted.

Now contesting in 12 of the 60 Assembly seats in the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly election, the NPF has given a fresh understanding or dimension to the understanding of a regional political party.

In the 12 seats in which it has fielded its candidates, the NPF is the main challenger to the Congress and if it manages to record a satisfactory score, it would have managed to do something which no regional political party born in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram or Meghalaya has been able to do.

The credit of being one of the oldest regional political parties in the country goes to the Manipur People's Party but never in its entire existence has it been able to make its presence felt outside the State and in the last few decades, it has seen its presence shrinking.

It has been the same case with the Asom Gana Parishad and the Mizo National Front.

Naga integration is definitely the only rallying point for the NPF and while there is nothing appealing about a political party being chained to only a one point agenda, there is no denying the fact that it has managed to make inroads into some pockets of the hill districts of Manipur.

It is not the BJP, not the NCP and certainly not the MPP which has mounted the biggest challenge to the ruling Congress in the said 12 seats, but the NPF and this is reflective of the failure of the other political parties which have been here much longer and which actually have something much more to talk about than just a one point agenda.

Or is it a case of the Lim agenda becoming central in all political discourses in some of the hill districts of Manipur ?

The somersault from No Repoll to Repoll in all the 60 Assembly seats bordering on the call to revoke the entire election held on January 28 may be brushed aside as a political gimmick, but in doing this the NPF has made a political statement, which is interesting.

In a way, it is an oblique message sent out to the Election Commission of India that they do not repose any faith in the election conducted under their jurisdiction and this has already been reflected in the charges levelled against the State Election Office by the NPF candidate in Tadubi Assembly Constituency in Senapati district.

There will be no prizes for guessing whether the ECI will take note of the radical shift in the stand of the NPF, but a point has already been aired and this is what is interesting.

That there are forces at work, which will definitely have an impact on the performance of the NPF candidates in the election is a foregone conclusion and while powerful forces may help win election it does not necessarily follow that it has helped in winning the people over to a political ideology.

This is one important point which must register in the minds of Mr Nephiu Rio and his assistants as well as his mentors. Having said this, the question of whether Manipur will witness another round of repoll or not has suddenly become more interesting with the sharp turn, bordering on hyperbole, by the NPF.

Whatever the decision of the ECI, one thing that cannot be refuted is the plain fact that electoral malpractices on a large scale were resorted to in all the Assembly Constituencies, overtly or covertly, and seen in this context, the stand of the NPF merits something more than just being brushed aside as a hyperbolic political statement.