Congress was the favourite punching bag of Chief Minister N Biren Singh blaming it for everything that is going wrong with Manipur. Now he is blaming the whole political class who had been representing the people in the last 40 years for practically doing nothing which had led to such a predicament now. Not only that, he went further by even blaming the current political leadership and legislators who he says only cared about getting elected. Seems like, he is the last man standing for the cause of Manipur.
In many of his earlier speeches, he always talked about how past governments and regimes had done almost nothing for the state and it has become the job of his government to bring back the state on the right track. Recently in the assembly session he said that he would be ready to leave politics if the decisions on border fencing, free movement regime, change of guard along the border and NRC are implemented. Till then, he and his team would cling to their posts and not surrender it to others as it is extremely necessary to save the state and its people.
Biren Singh trusts no one and he does not have confidence in any other political leader or dispensation other than himself and his party in taking up the cudgels for the sake of Manipur. Now he laments that he had become a punching bag from all sides for daring to take up the cause of Manipur’s territorial integrity and indigenous people. Anyone who dare to challenge his leadership, he paints it as a betrayal to the cause of Manipur and its indigenous folks particularly Meiteis. He has supporters who takes on the nay-sayers.
When reports of 19 MLAs from within the ruling coalition writing to the Prime Minister got leaked in the media, they were dubbed betrayers and political opportunists. Some groups even released statements to the press that in the present circumstances it is not right to talk of change in leadership. Such a statement could also be interpreted as being agreeable to a change in leadership while being concerned about the timing. Funny thing is that, none of the alleged signatories of the controversial letter has admitted it publicly.
Biren Singh has every right to defend his policies and his political legacy. While taking on the dissidents and nay-sayers, he is silent on the crisis in hand and how he plans to deal with the situation and bring normalcy in the state so that any problem detrimental to the interests of the state could be thrashed out. He is yet to spelt out why he is still unable to act like a leader in control of his destiny. He said he is no longer in command of the security architecture popularly known as the Unified Command and he is stripped of the powers to oversee the functioning of the Unified Command as he is a Meitei and the clashes is between Meiteis and Kukis. He is silent on how he is planning to wrest back the control of Unified Command and bring all central forces under his command?
As a Chief Minister, it should be his responsibility to thrash out any political differences within the ruling coalition and chalk out strategies to usher in a sort of normalcy and amiable atmosphere in the state by taking into confidence all the stakeholders including the opposition and his detractors in and out of the ruling family.
Sadly, he does not seem to have any issue with Union Home Minister removing him from the Unified Command leadership or of an imaginary buffer between the valley and surrounding hills or SoO still being in operation without any accountability or of some armed groups running riot in the valley. So, everyone expects him to act as a Chief Minister who is also in charge of Home department, and not at the beck and call of central leaders as law and order happens to be a state subject in case he has forgotten about it. When he says there is no harm in him not being the Chairman of the Unified Command he is in fact agreeing to the notion held by his own party leaders that he would not do justice to other communities other than the community he belongs to.
