IANS
Imphal, March 7
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is promising a corruption-free government in Manipur if it is voted to power after the February 2017 state assembly elections.
To keep up the winning streak of the party after it won the two byelections to the assembly in November last year, the Manipur BJP president and others are harping on the allegation of “the rampant corruption of the Congress government”.
The state BJP had exposed what it called the Rs.500 crore “scam” in clearing the floating biomass concretion in Loktak, the largest fresh water lake in eastern India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior ministers had assured of appropriate actions into the “scam”. However, the Loktak Development Authority officials told IANS they were yet to receive any official information about the CBI or vigilance investigations.
Speaking to party workers on Sunday evening here, state BJP president Thounaojam Chaoba said: “The Congress government cooked the book to claim that there were 100 days of works in a year in Manipur under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. On this basis, Manipur got an award as the best performance state.” “In fact, there was no work even for 20 days in a year and the government should be ashamed of it.”
He was also very sceptical about the implementation of the National Food Security Act in Manipur under which a beneficiary will be given 35 kg of rice in a month at Rs.3 per kg.
Chaoba said, “...the new scheme will give a free hand to the ministers, MLAs and agents and sub-agents.”
“Though the BJP has not had an MLA for last 15 years, we won both the byelections to the assembly in last November year. Besides, we had opened accounts in the nagar panchayat and municipal elections,” he said, adding there is a likelihood that the BJP would win majority in the forthcoming Imphal Municipal Corporation elections.
Thongam Bishwajit, the new BJP legislator, said: “The government had constructed the Yatri Niwas at Moreh, the border town for the benefit of tourists. Though the cost was Rs 1.47 crore, the government had paid Rs 4.8 crore to the contractors and this is the system of the corrupt government.”
From time to time, Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, who seems to be fed up with such charges, merely brushed aside the BJP, saying that “in a small state like Manipur people know who is corrupt or not”.
Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam has been ridiculing the BJP wave, saying since the mountains are very high the BJP wave cannot make a landfall in the northeast region.
