By Witoubou Newmai Peculiarities and odd situations are not anomalies in Manipur. One significant peculiarity in the state is the placid voting pattern during assembly elections witnessed in the past two decades. Turbulent situations triggered by ethnic issues engulfing every pocket, both in the hills and in the valley, seldom affect the electorate. However, undeterred politicians continue to encourage voters to fear: valley people grabbing tribal lands, Manipur to disintegrate in the event of Naga political issue settlement, migrant influx etc. These politicians do not gaze to other issues pricking the people. The Manipur electorate goes to polls in few months’ time, and with it, ethnic based issues as poll cards have become a popular menu for politicians today. The Naga political issue, the Kuki demands, the Meitei Scheduled Tribe (ST) demand, and the Inner Line Permit (ILP) related issues are going to be the slogans for political parties. However, the political configuration is such that issues like these often get neutralized by the so called ‘political compulsion’ of parties and politicians’ ethnic affiliations. To elucidate, politicians from the hills (Kuki and Naga) have common concern in Inner Line Permit related and other tribal issues but the cheese-chalk narratives of the Naga-Kuki political and social equations will dispel their unity. In the valley, the politicians find a strong root to harmony in Manipur territorial integrity issue but that unity is not sturdy enough to withstand the ripples often emanated from the warring BJP and the Congress party (from Delhi). The communal flare up between the Meiteis and the Nagas in the year 2001 triggered by the “without territorial limit” declaration of NSCN (IM)-Government of India (BJP led NDA) ceasefire failed to reflect in the assembly election of 2002. Out of 11 Naga dominated assembly constituencies the BJP could pocket only two seats, that too after immense pressure on the voters from certain quarters to boycott the Congress party and favour the saffron outfit. The verdict was almost the reverse to what was predicted. The valley districts fared worse. Riding on the popular Manipur territorial integrity slogan wave emanated from the June 18, 2001 flare up, some Meitei ‘hardliners’ sternly opposing the NSCN (IM) ceasefire extension in Manipur floated a political party christened as Democratic Revolutionary Peoples’ Party or DRPP (the term ‘revolutionary’ was deleted few months later) hoping to capitalize the people’s sentiment in the 2002 assembly polls. However, it could manage to pocket only two seats. There are 40 assembly constituencies in the valley. Shortly later, the two DPP legislators joined the Congress party. Again, in the year 2010 when Th. Muivah wanted to visit his native village in Ukhrul there was heightened communal tension in Manipur when the Ibobi Singh government barred him from stepping into Manipur soil. The simmering atmosphere was again fueled to the next level with the all out investment of resources by the Ibobi Singh government to prevent the expansion of the Naga People’s Front (NPF) to Manipur in the year 2011. It was a foregone conclusion for many political pundits that the Cock party would sweep the polls in Naga bastion in Manipur in the 2012 assembly polls with the hurt Nagas going against the Ibobi government. Again, it was the reverse of the popular calculation. Out of 11 seats in the ‘Naga areas’ NPF could clinch only four. Similar voting pattern was witnessed in the valley too. The Irom Sharmila fasting issue, the extrajudicial killings of Thangjam Manorama Devi and Sanjit have been the reasons for the anti AFSPA campaign in the valley in the past 15 years, with the public calling the Ibobi Singh government as too weak, insipid and unfit to be called a people’s government. But in times of elections the same people voted the Ibobi Singh government to power for three consecutive terms. For ordinary voters who are constantly disturbed by the thought of medical fees, job security, education of their children, decent meal and other basic facilities, money becomes the immediate balm to soothe their headaches.
