BJP ascends power in Manipur, the jewel of Bharat, after a spectacular election victory that hopefully brings the state to the national mainstream
Ganesh Krishnan R
Taking political pundits by surprise, BJP made a giant leap forward in Manipur, hitherto considered as a forbidden fruit for the party, in the recently concluded Assembly elections and finally formed a Government. In the state where it had failed to open account in 2012 elections, BJP made a historic gain of 21 seats and has become the largest single party in terms of vote share with 36.3 per cent. When the Congress, with 28 seats, failed to achieve the 31-seat majority mark, BJP forged an alliance with National People”s Party, Naga People”s Front and others and successfully claimed the majority. With former footballer Nongthombam Biren Singh taking oath on March 15 as the Chief Minister along with eight Cabinet Ministers, again after Assam, the BJP has positioned itself as a formidable force against anti-national elements in the strategically important north-eastern region of Bharat.
With a very sensitive demography, the population of the state is divided across various tribes in the hill and valley region. While the valley inhabited by Hindu Meiteis, accounts for over 65 per cent of total population of the state, the hill area is dominated by Naga and Kuki tribes who were subjected to a massive Christian proselytisation.
Disillusioned with the years-long misgovernance of Congress party, the people of Manipur took a brave step ahead, towards a peaceful and conducive atmosphere to live in and a developed state to prosper, to vote BJP to power. The voters in Manipur were seeking a solution to, both, development bottleneck and mounting unrest born out of insurgency because of which the state trailed behind the rest of the country.
When Manipur went to the polls, inflation reached such heights that
laymen were charged Rs 250 for a litre of petrol! People consider all these odds as natural outcome of misgovernance of the Okram Ibobi Singh Government. As reported by Wikileaks, Ibobi through his 15 year-long rule in the state that was infamous for rampant corruption, earned a nickname ‘Mr. 10 per cent’. The frequent blockades called for by various Naga organisations create havoc in the valley and result in steep price rise for
essential commodities.
Adding fuel into fire, the decision of Ibobi to create seven new districts provoked various Naga groups. For the creation of the proposed districts, some of the Naga majority districts were to be bifurcated. The naïve decision prompted the Naga outfits to call for another blockade amidst which the election process progressed. Instead of trying to restore the peace by settling the issue, the congress was trying to take political yield by driving the public ire against Naga groups. Flaring up sensitive issues to camouflage their own flaws, the Ibobi Government went so far as to denounce the landmark pact signed between The Union Government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak-Muivah (NSCN IM) and resorted to propagating blatant lies like ‘The pact was intended to divide Manipur.’
As the election results suggest, the policies of Narendra Modi-led BJP Government intended to bring the Ashtalakshmis (as the Prime Minister fondly called the 8 states) to the national mainstream, seem to have sown the seeds of hopes in the minds of people. The representation in the Cabinet, Parliament and various fora from the northeastern region has increased manifold. Unprecedentedly, the region finds special attention in the Government policies and pet projects, for instance, piloting a railway project in the region. The Prime Minister also insisted for a Minister level review of the projects underway in north-eastern states in every three months.
In other words, the spectacular victory in Manipur is a reverberation of what happened in Assam last year, where BJP surged ahead from 5 seats to 60 seats and seized power. With Ibobi stepping down the throne, the curtain falls over the 15 year-long Congress rule and a new dawn of politics rooted in nationalism that brings the state into national mainstream heralds in the heart of Jewel of Bharat.
(with the inputs from K Sujith, Janmabhumi Daily)
