CPI launched a mass campaign to “save Manipur” focusing on five “burning issues” the state is facing.
TFM Report
Communist Party of India, Manipur State Council secretary L Sotinkumar on Thursday claimed that there was “undeclared emergency” in the state.
No one can speak or express freely. Those who do are tagged as anti-national or arrested under stringent Acts like the National Security Act (NSA), he said and mentioned the arrest of Coalition Against Drugs and Alcohol (CADA) Thoubal District Committee general secretary Sintha Laishram was arrested for merely sharing photographs of a protest with a placard demanding the chief minister to step down.
He also asserted that the state government has suppressed the voice of the people. The dissenting voices have been repressed, he added.
Sotinkumar was briefing the media at the launching of a mass campaign to “save Manipur”. It will be a grassroot campaign with political conferences in different parts of the state.
The campaign will focus on five major issues – National Food Security Act (NFSA), Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), menace of drugs in the state, excessive use of money power in elections, and farmers’ issue.
In the media Briefing at the Irawat Bhawan, Imphal Sotinkumar elaborated on the issues. He asserted that the government cannot deprive the people of their right to food on flimsy excuses like the rice quota for the state has been reduced because the people failed to link their Adhaar. He contended that in the future the BJP led Union government might keep on reducing the quota and eventually scrapping the Act altogether.
MGNREGA has been acting as a safety net for the unemployed in the country, he said and accused the Union government of not releasing funds and reducing the number of days of work under the scheme.
Sotinkumar further stressed that the burning issue of drugs cannot be taken lightly. It has become a profitable business for the ministers, MLAs and bureaucrats.
In the present system of election, parties like BJP are spending excessive amounts of money to grab power. He contended that they try to buy the people and if somehow they fall short of the number to form the government they tend to buy MLAs. And after coming to power they loot the very people, he added.
Sotinkumar also questioned the BJP led state government of its tall claim of having good governance in the last four years. The prices of essential commodities have sky-rocketed. The prices of petrol and diesel are at all-time high. Businessmen are manipulating the market leading to artificial rise in prices. In such a scenario how chief minister N Biren Singh can claim that there has been good governance, he asked.
Biren often claims that the law and order has improved drastically in the state since his government came to power. If that is the case then why the state was being declared as disturbed area and AFSPA was still being imposed, he asked.