Humiliated at the hustings

IMPHAL:

Irom Sharmila's decision

to fight three-time chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh in the recent Manipur assembly polls was taken on the very day she ended her epic fast against the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act on August 9 last year. Ibobi had totally rejected her plea to repeal AFSPA during her 16-year struggle.

In October last, she set up

People's Resurgence and Justice Alliance

(PRJA). Besides her, Harvard University alumnus and PRJA convenor Erendro Leichombam and

co-convenor Najima Bibi

, the first Manipuri Muslim woman to contest assembly polls in the state, fought the election. However, PRJA failed miserably, Sharmila even more so. She secured a meagre 90 votes, while Ibobi Singh got a whopping 18,649 votes.

Instead of mass meetings and a full-blooded campaign to seek votes, Shamila focused on door-to-door canvassing. Her muchpublicised plan to marry her Indian-born British citizen boyfriend Desmond Coutinho after the polls was another factor for most key anti-AFSPA activists to distance themselves from her campaign.