The changing poll campaign
- Imphal Times Editorial :: March 02 2017 -

Whether 11th manipr Legislative Assembly Election will bring a change to the state of Manipur is a matter which needed serious debate.

No doubt the BJP and the Congress are the main contender in this battleground. But one cannot rule out those candidates contesting the election from other political parties of their choices.

Both BJP and the Congress are taking this election as a serious one as we have seen top star campaigners of both the parties engaging tough time campaigning for their respective political parties here in the state.

The first few months when ECI issued election notification certain sentimental issues are being used as tools for election propaganda by both the parties.

As for the Congress the ‘Frame Work Agreement’ and ‘Economic blockade’ is the only propaganda for campaign, while for BJP it was the corruption, misutilizations of government funds and mass scale violation government offices in appointment of employees.

For some other party it is the gross violation of Human Rights violations, fake encounter and drug haul issues.

Surprisingly when the polling day is just few days to go every living soul in the state seems to have forgotten about the issues that they had highlighted.

Those contesting the election too seemed to be forgotten about what they had spoken.

These candidates seems to be well aware of the mindset of the people and finally almost every candidates are now busy engaging door to door campaign taking more important to their personnel problems.

In election, numbers matter and persons who are serious of the real issues of the state are less and majority people only care for their day today requirement.

This kind of situation may be an architect of the past government but it is seen now and has become a phenomenon.

Even the Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh’s political gimmick by creating 7 new administrative districts in the state to garner support to congress party in the upcoming state assembly election turns out to be a flop one as interpersonal relationship seems more important.

The expectation of the congress party to garner supports in Kuki dominated area turn out to be another wrong calculation as even the senior Congress Minister, whose name had already been announced in the ticket list of the congress party had resigned and contested from another political party.

Nemcha Kipgen, the MLA of Kangpokpi Assembly constituency who had lately joined the congress party and who was supposed to applause the Chief Minister for declaring the Kangpokpi as a new administrative district even left the party.

In Naga area, the UNC has stand strong to oppose the congress party.

Well, now if Okram Ibobi Singh is so desirous of coming back to power than he would certainly concentrate at Valley assembly constituencies.

But while doing so and if suppose the three time chief minister succeeded that certainly the thin line drawn between various communities particularly the Naga as propose by NSCN-IM and the Kuki group will become clearer.