IMPHAL, January 28: The exclusive council of Koren (Koireng) Youth Organisation (KYO) Manipur began its 45th General Conference at Sadu Koireng, Sadar Hills (East) Senapati District from today.
The mood at the opening day of the event was spoilt as the main invitees, Speaker of the state Assembly Th Lokeshwar and local MLA Yamthong Haokip failed to turn up for the inaugural function. The start of the programme was delayed by two hours in the futile expectation of the two VIPs who reportedly did not even convey their inability to keep their appointment.
Former president of AMUCO R Yangsong lambasted the two political leaders for skipping the meet and denying a small community like the Koireng a chance to meet them and share their thoughts and feelings.
The Speaker and MLA have no qualm about disappointing the hopes of the community whereas the legislatures from Nagaland are very friendly and will cross the border and offer financial assistances, he stated.
The conference is held only once in a year with cultural, traditional and indigenous components. If the two political leaders were busy they should have passed the information in advance. People were eagerly looking forward to the rare occasion to meet them so that they can relate their grievances on education, health and other general issues and hand them memorandums, he stated.
Guest of honour of the function Mani Khuman, the president of AMUCO joined the tirade against them, describing their behaviour as very shameful.
On the other hand, he asserted that AMUCO vehemently believes in the sameness among the different people existing in the state. If the people are sitting together wearing the same dress no one can distinguished who is a Meitei, Kabui or Koireng or Kuki or Naga etc, he maintained adding that outside the state everyone of us is identified as Manipuri.
We need to focus on fostering unity and integrity among ourselves and passing it to the next generation. A country cannot develop without unity and individual thoughts cannot replace the effectiveness of oneness in the pursuit of our common goal, he stated.
So, we need to focus on the burning issues of the state collectively as Manipuris. We have issue about the international border fencing, continuous shrinking of agricultural land due to construction of dams etc., he said.
In the key note address Kungsong Wanbe said that Koireng Youth Organisation’s movement started from 1959 but it gained in strength only in 1965 at Sadu Koireng under the leadership of Phumsoram and Thangso Jeite as president and general secretary respectively.
The KYO has been providing encouragement in the fields of education, sports and literature etc. For the first time Miss Koireng contest was conducted in 1971 emulating the Miss Manipur contest held 1951. During that time the people criticised the Miss Koireng event, he recalled but now tribal people are organising them with lots of interest like Miss Kut, Orange Queen, etc.
He further said that KYO is going to celebrate its golden jubilee in 2015.
During the conference people from eight Koireng villages were present. Cultural dances were performed by troupes from Longa Koireng, Ngairong, Utonglok, Sadu Koireng and Kamu Koireng village. Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, the president of Indigenous Party of Tripura, and Zeite Chungsek president of KYO (M) were present as chief guest and president respectively of the function.