Kamjong Cabinet meet: Cancelled
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 16 2020 -

Rewind to Dec 8,2016 , Kamjong-one of the seven districts cremated in the midnight of December 8, 2016 by the then Ibobi led Congress Government is again in the news, although for an entirely different reason.

The proposed Cabinet meeting scheduled to be held there on December 16 has been cancelled/postponed and no explicit reasons have been spelt out for cancelling the proposed Cabinet meeting.

In the absence of any official reason on why the Cabinet meeting has been cancelled, it is not surprising to see speculations doing the round.'

Is it a case of the ghost of 2016 coming back to haunt the newly created district is one question that has been raised and this poser cannot be dismissed as shooting in the dark.

Lest one forgets-the tripartite talks involving the State Government, the United Naga Council and the Centre on the districts creation issue-is yet to arrive at a conclusion and it is the pandemic which has given the ongoing talks a break.

With the pandemic grabbing the attention of everyone, including the media, the tripartite talks have been pushed to the background, but the inexplicable cancellation of the scheduled Cabinet meeting at the newly created district has suddenly brought back the district creation issue to the limelight.

It was late in the night of December 8, 2016 that reports about the decision of the then Congress Government to create seven new districts came to the office of The Sangai Express.

In fact so late and unexpected it was, that the paper had been put to bed and the Editor and senior Sub-Editors of the newspaper had to return to the office, declare 'Stop Press' and proceed to carry the story, killing other stories which had been filed and completed earlier.

Four years down the line and suddenly the cancellation of the scheduled Cabinet meeting on December 16 at Kamjong district takes back one to the night of December 8, 2016.

The economic blockade that followed after the State Government announced the creation of the seven new districts must still be fresh in the minds of all, especially those who are in the media.

In fact so intense was the chain reaction to the blockade that the BJP rallied its campaign on the promise that it would bring the economic blockade to an end if it is voted to power in the 2017 Assembly elections.

As things turned out, the BJP did pip the Congress in the race to power in the 2017 Assembly elections and the economic blockade was called off, but the cancellation of the scheduled Cabinet meeting at Kamjong on December 16, brings back memory of the district creation issue, especially since the tripartite talks is nowhere near coming to a binding conclusion.

No official reasons have been spelt out and it may not be incumbent on the Government to spell out the reason for the cancellation, but it is significant to note that Cabinet meetings have been held in other hill districts headquarters.

It has been held at Kangpokpi, the chief reason for the uproar against the districts creation back in 2016, at Churachandpur, Senapati, Ukhrul, Chandel, Tamenglong etc and the definitely the people of Kamjong may feel short changed with the decision to cancel the Cabinet meeting, especially with many numerous projects lined up to be inaugurated by the Chief Minister.