Point delivered. It is however important to go beyond the observation that the time is not conducive to hold polls in the State and study why such a situation has come about in the first place. Obviously the root cause will go back to decades, the decades of the big, big divide between the hills and the valley and it will need more than a book to come out with the whys and hows but it is important to study the present scenario, a condition wherein some organisations, the Citizens’ Committee, Manipur and earlier the United Naga Council had deemed it fit to put across the message to the Election Commission of India that the time is not conducive to hold the scheduled election to the State Assembly. Different methods adopted but the message was by and large the same. While the United Naga Council deemed it better to stage a silent protest during the visit of Director General of the Election Commission of India to Senapati a few days back, the Citizens’ Committee, Manipur opted to interact with the officer and put across their viewpoints. The turn of things to come was sounded when the United Naga Council decided to go ahead with its economic blockade call from November 1 last year against the design of the State Government to create Sadar Hills and Jiribam districts. The blockade intensified after the State Government actually went ahead and declared the formation of seven new districts on December 8 last year.
To rejig the memories of readers, things took a turn for the worse when counter blockades were imposed in different parts of the valley area and it came out in all ugliness in mid December last year wherein even passenger carrying vehicles were targeted. From goods carrying trucks to passenger vehicles, that is how the blockade and the counter blockade took on different forms. There may be no open confrontation now, but tension still runs high and the submission that this is not the best of time to hold the election can be better understood when viewed against this backdrop. Not that the election will be rescheduled, but it is only right for the people to try and understand why such a situation has come about just when the State is going to polls. And to understand better, it may also be right to question who stands to gain by plunging the State into such a situation ? An important question this is for remember election will be held on March 4 barely ten days from now. So before people make up their mind on who and which political party to vote for, just ask some questions like who or which political party is responsible for throwing the State into such a situation in the first place. This may perhaps make the understanding of election all that more meaningful.
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