The manner in which merit students, deserving seats from the allotted MBBS quota, had been snubbed by powerful vested interest politicians and bureaucrats has obviously not gone down well with the student community and rightly so as they have felt cheated. To vent their anger over the manner in which a deserving student was denied his rightful claim to an MBBS seat and the charges of nepotism made against Education, Information Technology & Technical Education Minister Imkong Imchen, the Highway Area Sumi Students’ Union (HASSU), which has been leading the protest against the Minister, had upped its ante by calling for a total closure of National Highway 39, along Dimapur area on August 7, Monday. Resorting to such an action cannot in anyway be appreciated in the same way as denying a hardworking and deserving student his or her right cannot be justified. It is obvious that the students are not fully satisfied despite the government taking the decision to revoke the allotment of MBBS seats given to the two unqualified students. But now that the bandh has been suspended, better sense should prevail.
What is even more disappointing is the manner in which the entire issue has been (mis)handled by the State government. Firstly, till date, the government has failed to even give one official statement on the JEE fiasco. It is unimaginable that when a public issue of such magnitude is taking place in the State, the elected government chooses to remain in silent mode. By remaining indifferent, the DAN government is sending the wrong message to the masses. The only conclusion that one can draw is that the government is unresponsive to public concern; it does not believe in transparency and lastly, it is refuses to remain accountable to the people who have voted them to power in the first place. As a government which has prided itself as a people’s government, the manner in which it has treated the JEE fiasco is therefore a big disappointment.
What is even more disconcerting is that the concerned authorities did not even find it worthwhile to inform publicly of the decision to revoke its earlier order canceling the illegal allotment. If it had not been for the local media (The Morung Express in this case) querying the government, the latter would have kept its decision under wraps from the public eye. Another spectacle that has obviously not gone unnoticed is the confusion within the government on the issue. According to a news report in a leading local daily, the concerned Minister currently in the middle of the controversy is reported to have said that the Cabinet stood by what he had earlier clarified. If this indeed is true, it only points to one thing, which is that the Cabinet has given a clean chit to him. Now if that is the case, how come the decision has been taken to revoke the nominations of the two unqualified candidates? It appears that there is a deeper nexus going on and even the Chief Minister in all probability would have known all along about the ‘nepotism deal’. In that case Minister Imkong Imchen need not have to worry about his chair as he is in good company.
