Manipur Assembly election | Opposition Congress comes down hard on BJP

It points to various omissions and commissions of ruling party

Women supporters hold BJP flags as they welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Imphal

The Opposition Congress in Manipur has hit back at the ruling BJP ahead of the two-phase Assembly poll on February 27 and March 3.

Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Loken said that as a result of various acts of commissions and omissions, the BJP would not come back to power.

The Congress president said, “Chief Minister N. Biren has been saying that under his leadership the law and order has improved spectacularly with people having a sound sleep without fear of midnight knocks. If that is so, why he is refusing to lift the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from Manipur? He was one of the signatories to an ultimatum demanding the lifting of the AFSPA from Manipur, failing which he said MLAs will resign from the membership of the House”.

“Though the BJP-led government is all for the continued enforcement of the AFSPA, the Ibobi-led Congress government had lifted this Act from seven Assembly segments on August 12, 2004,” Mr. Loken added.

In order to combat foreign-trained insurgents, the Manipur government imposed it on September 8, 1980.

Mr. Loken said, “The BJP in its vision document said in 2017 that if voted to power it will give employment to one person in each family. Though the government offices have 21,000 vacancies, the youth have not been given employment. Some job interviews were held. However, the results were not declared”.

He further said that the BJP announced a policy to construct houses for the homeless among the poor. “The selected beneficiaries were asked to spend ₹60,000 for the spade work and after assessing the progress ₹1,50,000 would be deposited to their bank accounts. The beneficiaries can hardly afford two square meals a day. They borrowed ₹60,000 from the money-lenders. After one or two instalments for the lucky few, the money was not credited at all. The poor are paying the interest with great difficulty.”

Mr. Loken recalled that the BJP had pledged to protect the territory and punish those who had engineered fake encounters. There are big question marks on the erection of border fencing as allegations are that Myanmar is obstructing the work. There are reports that there were 1,528 cases of fake encounters in Manipur.

“The BJP-led coalition government did not book any accused persons. A horrible crime was committed on a young girl, Thangjam Manorama, who was killed after gang rape by security personnel. But nobody was booked,” he added.