IMPHAL, DEC. 2: Manipur Peoples’ Party (MPP),one of the oldest political parties in the entire north eastern region conducted a sit-in demonstration against the ongoing economic blockade on national highways in Manipur here on Friday.
“We sit here to protest the ruling congress government’s inability to solve the problem arising out of the indefinite economic blockade on National Highways,” said their president, N Sovakiran.
“We also condemn the central government for indirectly supporting the blockade and illegal tax collectors on highways.”
However he did not elaborate on it.
People of the landlocked state had been suffering ‘untold miseries’ as the United Naga Council sponsored indefinite economic blockade continues for more than a month by now. The state had been witnessing queues in front of grocery shops, oil pumps and banks in view of the blockade. The blockade was called in protest against the state government’s plan to create Sadar hills in Senapati district and Jiribam in Imphal East district into full-fledged districts since November 1 midnight.
Since the government is unable to solve the current problem of the state, they should ‘surrender’, another worker of the MPP asserted.
The MPP, which could not produce a single MLA in the last assembly election, is gearing up for the upcoming state assembly elections.
“Now steps are on for the upcoming polls. Though we’re yet to finalise the number of candidates for the polls, we’re planning to field not less than 10 candidates this time,” the MPP president said.
Meanwhile, most of the goods-laden trucks that were stranded at the Mao gate, 110 kms north of Imphal bordering Nagaland’s border town Khuzama since the beginning of the blockade on the state’s supply lines-National Highway 2, were escorted back to Imphal in the wee hours of the day, reports available here said.
