President’s Rule has come ! Not a shocker at all
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The Centre has not explicitly spelt out, but there have to be reasons why N Biren Singh was persuaded to put in his paper and Manipur wants that this should serve some purpose. Why was Biren Singh removed ? Is it because of the growing voice of dissent from within the BJP MLAs and the looming no-confidence motion which the Congress was planning to put up, obviously with support from the dissident BJP MLAs ? If this is the case then why was the voice of revolt raised against N Biren ? Ever since Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3, 2023, it should be more than obvious that N Biren was sidelined and nothing illustrates this better than the fact that recently appointed Governor AK Bhalla took it upon himself to preside over a security meeting which was attended by the DGP and top notch officers of the Assam Rifles and other Central security forces. This must be the first time that a Governor had presided over a matter dealing with law and order in a State of the great Indian Union. Again this was the first time that the position of Chairman of the Unified Command was wrested from the Chief Minister and given to a former IPS officer and Manipur must be the only State where there is a popularly elected Government, but the Centre had a direct hand in the appointment of the Chief Secretary and the DGP. The very fact that the Senapati based Naga People’s Organisation (NPO) had submitted a memo- randum addressed to the Union Home Minister to appoint a particular IAS officer as the Chief Secretary of Manipur should say it all. This was before PK Singh was formally named as the Chief Secretary of Manipur and this was the first time that the Centre was approached to appoint an officer as the Chief Secretary. And it is against this reality that Delhi has decided to impose President’s Rule in Manipur keeping the State Assembly under animated suspension. A case of Delhi no longer shadow boxing behind the State Government, but to the people, the question of greater importance would be whether Central intervention in the form of PR would help take Manipur to the path of recovery or not. To yet many others it would just be a question of change in nomenclature for the argument that the State Government was rendered toothless since May of 2023 and the Centre calling the shot sounds right. Juxtapose this observation against the declaration of N Biren sometime back that he had not received an intelligence inputs for the last 15 months and things should be clear.
In a way the proxy rule is over and the Centre has now decided that it should be officially in charge of the affairs of Manipur and interesting to note that nobody knows how long this arrangement will continue, as no time limit for keeping an Assembly under animated suspension has been spelt out in black and white. As long as situation continues to be fragile, as long as the situation that one sees today continues, one can expect the current spell of President’s Rule to continue. This is a given and there can be no two ways over it. Coming back to the question raised earlier, can Manipur now expect to see more ‘normal’ days with the coming of President’s Rule ? This is the question which should be uppermost in the minds of everyone and while no one can say anything with a degree of certainty on what the coming days hold, it may be said that PR was a thing waiting to happen. As stated while the announcement of PR did not come as a shocker to The Sangai Express it did send the newsroom into a sort of a tizzy with numerous questions raised such as whether the Assembly has been dissolved or kept under animated suspension. It did not take long for the cable news channels based in Imphal to come out with their ‘breaking news’ byte with all pitching in and announcing the imposition of PR to the viewers and listeners alike. The question Manipur should ideally be asking right now and gearing to ask in the coming days is whether PR will help restore normalcy or not. Importantly too, one may be inclined to ask whether this is Delhi’s way of showing that it is not indifferent to the situation here in Manipur. The answer can best be known on how the situation is dealt with in the coming days.
In a way the proxy rule is over and the Centre has now decided that it should be officially in charge of the affairs of Manipur and interesting to note that nobody knows how long this arrangement will continue, as no time limit for keeping an Assembly under animated suspension has been spelt out in black and white. As long as situation continues to be fragile, as long as the situation that one sees today continues, one can expect the current spell of President’s Rule to continue. This is a given and there can be no two ways over it. Coming back to the question raised earlier, can Manipur now expect to see more ‘normal’ days with the coming of President’s Rule ? This is the question which should be uppermost in the minds of everyone and while no one can say anything with a degree of certainty on what the coming days hold, it may be said that PR was a thing waiting to happen. As stated while the announcement of PR did not come as a shocker to The Sangai Express it did send the newsroom into a sort of a tizzy with numerous questions raised such as whether the Assembly has been dissolved or kept under animated suspension. It did not take long for the cable news channels based in Imphal to come out with their ‘breaking news’ byte with all pitching in and announcing the imposition of PR to the viewers and listeners alike. The question Manipur should ideally be asking right now and gearing to ask in the coming days is whether PR will help restore normalcy or not. Importantly too, one may be inclined to ask whether this is Delhi’s way of showing that it is not indifferent to the situation here in Manipur. The answer can best be known on how the situation is dealt with in the coming days.