The die is cast. Both the ruling and Opposition have rolled up their sleeves for a pitch battle in the hustings. The propaganda war and smear campaigns have also begun while the social media is awash with fake narratives or mud-slinging. Of the six candidates in the Inner Manipur parliamentary constituency, two candidates have come out in the ultimate reckoning as the general public continues to weigh options. The general electorate has sympathies for both RPI (Athawale) candidate Maheshwor Thounaojam and independent RK Somendro alias Kaiku. They are quite loveable, that cannot be disputed. But in the present context, love and sympathy has little role to play.
Of the two remaining candidates, the one from Heirok has successfully created such a controversy where the state is pitted against the public as a result of his irresponsible utterances. As we mused a few days back, resolution of the conflict and ushering in peace in the state seems to be uppermost in the minds of people, and that it has somehow escaped the mind of the political leaders.
The powers that be or the BJP are flagging the issues like Narco-terrorism and foreign mercenaries, illegal infiltration from across the border, suspension of Free Movement Regime (FMR), border fencing, demand for separate administration by the Kuki-Zo brotherhood, National Register of Citizens (NRC), the controversial Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) and violations of SoO ground rules by Kuki militant groups.
Well, there are several other issues confronting the state also. Narco-terrorism is of great concern causing destruction and degradation of forests and environment through widespread poppy cultivation in the state, mushrooming growth of militant groups to facilitate and guard the poppy plantations, bringing in cheap labour from across the border and settling them, steep rise in drug abuse among the youth through trickle down effect in drug smuggling, and corruption of the political class and law enforcing agents by drug bosses.
BJP has made certain claims in election ads. It claimed that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) has been removed. As a matter of fact, it is yet to be fully scrapped although its operation has been suspended for now and there is stiff resistance from Mizoram and Nagaland in this regard. Border fencing of the Indo-Myanmar boundary line is not a new undertaking, but progress was lacking due to certain disputes on missing boundary pillars and secondary markers.
However, the decision to fence the entire stretch of Indo-Myanmar border was taken only recently. Here also, there are still objections. The BJP ad also said that it has implemented ILP in Manipur. In fact, it is a watered-down version of ILP and the body (JCILPS) which led the movement has several reservations on the rules framed for the purpose and in actual implementation.
In the case of illegal immigrants, identification and collection of biometric data had begun and in fact this drive was one of the important issues which led to ignition of the present crisis. As regards steps towards implementation of National Register of Citizens (NRC), nothing concrete had been spelt out. In fact, NRC was one of the most important focal points of the agreements signed between the state government and AMSU in 1980 and 1994 with regard to identification of illegal immigrants.
The Census Reports of 1951, NRC 1951 and Village Directory 1951 were to be the basis of the quest. NTC 1951 is a register prepared after the conduct of the Census of 1951 in respect of each village, showing the houses or holdings in a serial order and indicating against each house or holding the number and names of persons staying therein. These registers covered each and every person enumerated during the Census of 1951 and were kept in the offices of the then Assam Deputy Commissioners and Sub Divisional Officers according to instructions issued by the Government of India in 1951. These records are yet to be traced as of now.
