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Manipur : Parties step up campaign on Army Act |
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In Manipur, the people’s movement against Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act refuses to die down with opposition parties expressing their determination to make a bigger issue out of the Act to dethrone the Okram Ibobi Singh-led Secular Progressive Front ministry in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
With hardly four months to go for the election, opposition parties - both regional and national - are mounting pressure on the Ibobi Singh government and blaming it for the continued presence of the Act in the state.
“The Ibobi Singh government is in the way of withdrawing the army act from Manipur. If the Manipur Peoples Party comes to power, our government would not wait more than a few days before withdrawing the Act,” Nimaichand Luwang, a senior MPP leader, told a party conference in Imphal West.
The MPP, the oldest regional party in Manipur, is presenting itself as the alternative to the Congress-SPF combine.
The party’s confidence has been bolstered by the merger of the Federal Party of Manipur, the largest Opposition group and the Democratic Revolutionary Peoples Party last month.
Ibobi Singh’s admission that should the army be withdrawn, the existing state force could not maintain law and order in Manipur and also protect vital installations, has failed to convince the people.
Government pilloried over meet ban
In another development, the Okram Ibobi Singh government has drawn flak from Opposition parties in Manipur for banning “anti-government” meetings and discussions from being held in buildings belonging to the government.
Opposition parties termed the order issued by state Chief Aecretary Jarnail Singh as an “attempt to muzzle” the voice of the people, claiming that the order was even more dangerous than the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.
In a notification dated October 30, the chief secretary asked all heads of government departments not to allow anti-government activities in seminars, conferences and functions on campuses and in halls under their administrative control. The move has come in the wake of discussions by non-governmental organisations over the past few months on violation of human rights and alleged excesses by security forces in Manipur.
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