2017 : Not too far, not too near : The lighter side of politics
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: Ocotber 27, 2014 -

Not within shaking hands distance, but this may not everything for politics is a funny world.

So it stands that while a little over two years or say 27 or 28 months is a pretty long period of time, in politics it may be something totally different.

Little wonder then that while the Congress Government in Manipur has more than two years to go, the State BJP on the other hand will say that it has just a little over two years in office.

Politics can be funny at times.

While many may say that the BJP Government at the Centre is just a few months old and by that extension too early to judge the performance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the same time this may not stop many from stating that the Prime Minister is making all the right noises.

A pose that has been struck by the State unit of the BJP.

While the State unit of the BJP has gone to town to win over the confidence of the people with its new found strength, convinced that it can unseat the Congress Government in the next Assembly election in 2017, the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee has been emitting the message that it is here to stay even longer.

The Hiyanglam Assembly Constituency by election may have just injected the right dose of positive injection to the Congress Government here.

However only the deliberately blind and the politically naive will not be ready to read the situation all over the country.

Save for the results of some by elections held earlier, the BJP has been on a strong wicket.

Not only did it give a whitewash to the Congress at the Maharashtra and Haryana elections, but it has also managed to walk away with the name of quite a number of former political leaders, who the Congress has been treating as its own.

Difficult to say which way the wind will blow when the Assembly election is held here 27 or 28 months hence, but the State unit of the BJP certainly seems to be on a high.

From a party with not a single MLA in the current Assembly, it will be interesting to see how the party fares in the next Assembly election.

A more than enough indication that while Manipur may politically breathe differently when compared with the rest of the country, everything suggest that it cannot and will not remain cut off from the political happenings around the country.

At the same time, as underlined by the result of the by poll election to Hiyanglam Assembly Constituency, the earlier observation that when Delhi sneezes Imphal invariably catches a cold may not hold that much water now.

Local issues gaining ascendancy over other issues or a case of the voters being just too laid back to study and understand what is happening across the country.

Whatever the case may be, the State Congress leaders certainly have their task cut out and Chief Minister O Ibobi and MPCC (I) president Gaikhangam will certainly need to do more than what have been done so far in the name of the Congress party or the Congress Government.

On the other hand, the State unit of the BJP too will need to show that they can stand on their own.

It will definitely work in their favour if they can demonstrate that they do understand local issues and can stand without the Modi crutch.