The news that all the seven Manipur State Congress Party (MSCP) MLAs are about to join    the Congress, spells a death for another regional political party in  the  North-East. In the last couple of years, quite a number of regional political parties have faced the    same fate and the rate of such premature deaths is   alarmingly high in the region.

It is no gainsaying that a  vast  and divergent country like India cannot be ruled by a single political  party. When the Congress was in power at the    Centre and in most of states, people, especially from the backward regions,  often felt neglected. They felt that decisions were taken to please its support base rather than making any sincere efforts to ensure development and progress of the backward regions of the country.

From such a strong feeling of neglect, regional parties had emerged in most parts of the country. The DMK in Tamil Nadu, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in Assam all were born from this sense of neglect. The initial success of these regional parties also encouraged some other groups to come up with new regional outfits.

The North-Eastern region, which undoubtedly is one of the most neglected regions in the country, saw the birth of various regional political parties in the last two decades or so. But the most disturbing fact is that the regional political parties are fast losing its grounds in the North-East and thus once again leaving the task of meeting the regional aspirations to the national political parties.

Not very long ago, in early nineties, several states of the North-Eastern region were being ruled by regional political parties. The AGP was in power in Assam, the Manipur People’s Party (MPP) grabbed the power in Manipur. NPC leader Vamuzo was heading a coalition government in Nagaland. But today, apart from Mizoram, no other North-Eastern state is being ruled by regional parties.

More than the statistics, what is more worrying is the present state of the regional parties. The AGP is no longer a party closer to the hearts of every Assamese people. In the last two general elections, the AGP failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat. The MPP, the oldest regional party in the region, has only signboard presence at present in Manipur. There is virtually no opposition to the Congress in Nagaland. Gegong Apang-led Arunachal Congress is struggling for its existence after losing power to the Congress. The Tripura Upajati Yuba Samiti (TUJS) was forced to merge with IPF for survival.

Why did this happen? Why did the regional parties in the region  lose the trust of the people so soon? Why did such parties fail to meet regional aspirations? These are the questions which should be answered by the regional party leaders, whom the people voted to power with lot of expectations.

After leaving the Congress and forming the MSCP, its leader T. Chaoba Singh confidently predicted that national political parties like the Congress and the BJP had    virtually no future in the North-Eastern region. As the country has entered into coalition era and the bigger political parties would have to depend on smaller regional parties, regional outfits like the MSCP would be able to fulfill the regional aspirations by extracting pound of flesh from bigger political parties in    exchange of support, he claimed. But today, within couple  of years of    formation of the MSCP, it seems that the party    itself has no future     in Manipur.

But what the TDP has been able to achieve for Andhra by extending outside support to Vajpayee Government, the MSCP has failed to match it. Some may say that number was important behind TDP’s success, but the fact is that those political observers were only telling half truths. The reason why MSCP failed is that the party    could never put up a united face  like the TDP. The party was so divided from the beginning that it could hardly present the case of Manipur to the Centre. Moreover,  at one point of time,      the MSCP Government in Manipur became a liability for the Vajpayee Government rather than an asset, when demands were raised from all the concerned quarters to impose President’s rule in the State as W. Nipamacha Singh, another founder of the MSCP, virtually failed in every aspect of governance.

Same was the case with the AGP. The party was a partner in V. P. Singh Government. But the party failed to mount pressure on the V. P. Singh Government to implement Assam Accord without any delay. Very much like the MSCP, the AGP too was faction-ridden. Factionalism within the party reached to such a height that its representative in the Union Cabinet, the late Dinesh Goswami, once resigned  from the cabinet.   The AGP got another chace during United Front’s regime. But the party once again failed to seize that opportunity.

Infighting, lust for power, nepotism and poor leadership are the reasons for the downfall of regional parties in the North-East. Instead of tackling the burning problems of the State, AGP leader Prafulla Mahanta showed more interest in expelling Bhrigu Phukan and Atul Bora from the party. How deep was the lust for power can be judged from the fact that Mr. Mahanta never resigned from the post of party presidentship  even after becoming the chief minister. The main reson for conflict between W. Nipamacha Singh and T. Chaoba Singh was that the latter demanded that after becoming the  chief minister the former should vacate the post of party presidentship. Ignoring the mounting problems of the State, these two were engaged in a fierce battle to decide who had more say in the organisational set-up ­— was it the president or the working president. While W. Nipamacha Singh was the president of the MSCP, Chaoba Singh was the working president of the party.

Take the case of Arunachal Congress. This regional party was formed after the iron man of Arunachal politics Gegong Apang severed his ties with the Congress. Almost all the MLAS  elected on Congress ticket joined Apang. Gegong Apang and his followers were particularly unhappy over Congress high command’s  repeated interferences in the State affairs. After leaving the Congress and forming the regional party, Gegong Apang joined hands with the BJP and became a partner in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

But trouble soon started when the Arunachal Congress supremo manipulated the entry of his son, Omak Apang in the Union Cabinet, ignoring the claims of couple of other senior leaders of the party. The deprived leaders joined hands against nepotism and finally succeeded in dethroning Gegong Apang. Mr. Apang’s hope of making a comeback was dashed when his party performed poorly in the Assembly elections in the State.

There are many such instances, where the leaders of the regional political parties fought against their own partymen neglecting the interest of their states. As a result, the Assam Accord is yet to be implemented in its true letter and spirit. Various developmental projects cannot be implemented in the North-East region because of political instability. The regional parties, which talked about removing regional imbalances, promised to provide a kickstart to developmental activities actually acted against faster growth of this backward region. That is why the people of the region have lost faith in regional political parties. Still there are plenty of such parties, but none really enjoys popular support.

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