[ Amar Sangno ]
Election mode has nearly set in Arunachal and Arunachalese love to get drenched in the election fervour.
The election enthusiasm has already begun in a few state assembly constituencies and battle lines have been drawn.
The widely celebrated festival will be all about money and ludicrous promises. Money, jobs, projects, mortgages and alcohol are freely offered in return of precious votes.
This is the true facet of elections, at least in Arunachal, which arrives every five years.
However, it seems splurging extravagant money on elections will not make much of an impact this time around, and the brand ‘Bharatiya Janata Party'(BJP) will have a far-reaching impact as the BJP party ticket is the buzzword for the 2019 state assembly elections.
Political pundits are quick in their conjecture that whosoever gets the coveted BJP ticket will ultimately emerge as the winner.
Amusingly, incumbent and aspiring MLA candidates in many constituencies are from the BJP camp; obsequiously engaging themselves and selling the saffron dream to woo their respective voters.
Someone has truly said that Arunachali politicians suffer from ‘ruling party syndrome’ as no one wants to be trapped in the opposition camp.
On August 20, 2017, Meghalaya Pradesh Youth Congress president Richard Marak had said that the lotus would not bloom in the hills.
However, the belligerent BJP proved it wrong in the recently concluded state executive meeting of the BJP that was organized in a grandiose manner at Pasighat in East Siang district.
The centurion town was draped in saffron flags; the highway and streets were embellished with fluttering BJP flags giving a new look to the town, and patriotic songs were played throughout the meet.
Contrary to the popular belief then, the lotus is blooming magnificently in the eastern most state of India.
Each passing day, there are reports of mass joining of new members to the BJP at the district and booth levels -all aspiring to be in the panchayat or legislative assembly.
The rich and poor, the young and old- are all singing paeans of the saffron party, and high decibel sloganeering to root-out the grand old Congress party is reverberating in nooks and corners of Arunachal Pradesh. The saffron is truly surging in Arunachal!
After the Civil Secretariat, the state BJP office is turning out to be one of the busiest offices. Corrupt or clean imaged, all candidates want to contest from the BJP ticket. The ‘party with a difference’ is hardly in a position to resist the temptation of embracing them all with open arms in their mission of a Congress-mukt Bharat.
Noticeably, BJP state president Tapir Gao is finding the party ticket issue too hot to handle as BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, during the state executive meeting at Pasighat, clearly mentioned that Delhi would decide who gets the party ticket.
The BJP must realize that it cannot welcome everyone on board, and that the priority of the party must be to pick good candidates and ensure good governance in the future.
It will be interesting to watch who the BJP fields as its best players in the 60 state assembly constituencies after the declaration of elections.
Till then, it is a waiting game for the voters as well as the nervous probable candidates!
