Elevating propaganda to an art : Poll campaign talk
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 27 2011 -

Election time or rather election fever may mean different things to different people, depending on one's view towards the biggest electoral exercise in the world and with Manipur set to elect her 10th Assembly sometime in February next year, election campaigning has been set in motion in many of the 60 Assembly Constituencies.

To the political parties, the time means patting themselves on the back and discrediting the other political parties seen as their rivals while to the respective party workers the time means putting their best foot forward in preparation for D Day.

To some section of the public, the majority if we may add, election time will mean free lunch and dinner and of course money to decide their choice of the candidate while to some of the discerning public, who make up only a fraction of the total strength of the electorate, election time may mean the need to reach out to the voters to make them realise that selling their votes will not be to their advantage in the long run.

And there may be yet another class of people who prefer to remain doggedly indifferent to what is being staged on the election battle turf. It was in this climate that the office of the Thangmeiband Block Youth Congress Committee was opened on September 25, 2011 at Thangal bazar.

With the shadow of the 10th Assembly beginning to cast its shadow over the land, the office inauguration do trekked along predictable lines and it was in keeping with the need of the day that Works Minister K Ranjit launched a broadside against the Opposition, rubbishing all the accusations and allegations levelled against the ruling SPF Government.

The Works Minister topped this off by pointing to the numerous development projects taken up by the SPF Government. All this is fine for election campaigning is a question of how well one is able to package one's party to win over the voters.

This however does not mean that the public should lap up everything that politicians say, especially when it is election campaigning.

Propaganda has been elevated to the form of an art and one defining characteristic of any such drive is trumpeting what is perceived to be achievements and playing down or erasing whatever is deemed to be failures.

And nowhere does this art form come in handy as much as during election campaigning and this is the reason why the public need to be doubly cautious before biting the bait that is laid down before them by politicians and political parties.

The exercise to clear the phumdis or floating bio-mass from Loktak lake is one project that does not figure in the consciousness of the public prominently for this is something that is removed from the immediate sights of the majority of the people and the impact of phumdis or the exercise to clear this from Loktak is not felt directly or immediately, except to those whose livelihoods depend on the lake.

Thanks to Works Minister K Ranjit, this particular project has been catapulted to the attention of the public. Forty five percent of the work has been completed, according to the honourable Minister.

The one important point that was however not mentioned was that the initial time frame to complete the exercise was 2 years and 3 months or 27 months. Kicked off on January 6, 2010, this means that the whole exercise of clearing the phumdis ought to wind up by March next year.

As things stand today 21 of the 27 months given for the project to wind up have been consumed and the work progress has been pegged at 45 percent. Taken up as a joint venture by K Pro Infra Works, New Delhi and Progressive Construction Limited, Hyderabad at an estimated amount of Rs 224 crore, the State Planning Commission has also sanctioned Rs 440 crores towards the project.

The question now is with just 45 percent of the work completed, despite taking up 21 of the 27 months time frame, where will the money come from if the time frame is to be extended, which in all likelihood, it would be ?

From the tax payers' share ? Now let the public decide whether this is achievement or not.

Or maybe the completion of 45 percent has been deemed to be some sort of an achievement given the Government's pathetic failure to even complete the Imphal Sewerage Project after so many years.

Poll talk is hot air.