New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Friday that Opposition parties would continue to find means to stop the violence in Manipur, reiterating their resolve a day after the no-confidence motion against the BJP-led government was expectedly defeated in the Lok Sabha.
Speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s over two-hour speech Thursday – the longest by any PM responding to a no-trust motion – Gandhi said it was not about India or Manipur, “but about Modi, his views, politics and ambitions”.
“The question is not whether he will become PM in 2024, the question is Manipur is burning. Women are being raped, people are being killed,” Gandhi told the media in Delhi Friday.
He added that Modi’s speech could have been delivered in a public meeting. “The PM should understand that the debate in Parliament was not about him, but about Manipur,” the Wayanad MP said, underscoring that in the 19 years he has been in politics he has not seen a situation as bad as Manipur.
Gandhi was extremely critical of Narendra Modi’s speech in Parliament, saying he did not understand how India’s Prime Minister could talk like he did about Manipur. “He spoke for two hours and thirteen minutes, and only two minutes about Manipur. The state is burning, women are being raped, children are being killed. If you saw, the PM was laughing, cracking jokes… This does not behove him. He is the Prime Minister of India. If there is violence anywhere, India’s PM should not make a joke if it,” Gandhi said.
VIDEO | "The PM was laughing and cracking jokes while speaking about Manipur in the Parliament which does not suit him," alleges Congress leader @RahulGandhi. pic.twitter.com/tqVyeonauV
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 11, 2023
He added: “The PM could at least go to Manipur, talk to the communities and say, ‘I am your Prime Minister, let’s start talking’; it will be taken seriously. I don’t see any intention.”
Gandhi also said he would always rush anywhere to defend “Bharat Mata” – a reference to which was expunged from his no-trust speech in Lok Sabha Wednesday.
“I said ‘Bharat Mata has been murdered in Manipur’ because Manipur as we knew it doesn’t exist anymore… for the first time, the words ‘Bharat Mata’ have been expunged from Parliament records… it’s an insult,” he told the media, reacting to the House action on his speech.
Gandhi reiterated that the Indian Army could stop the violence in Manipur the moment it was asked, “but the government is not doing so”, he said.
In his speech that wrapped up the three-day, no-confidence debate Thursday, Modi said people of the country stood with Manipur and that peace would be restored soon to the state that has seen horrific ethnic clashes for the last three months.
The PM did not offer much details on the destructive unrest in the northeastern state — which has resulted in 152 deaths so far and driven thousands to relief camps — saying Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s “detailed statement” the day before had taken care of that aspect.
The Opposition, which walked out of the House nearly 90-minutes into his speech, was at the receiving end of the PM’s attack, who repeatedly tore into the INDIA bloc – particularly the Congress – and exuded confidence of his return to office in 2024.
Modi flayed the newly-formed 26-member INDIA alliance for its “poverty of imagination”.
The Opposition had moved the no-confidence motion as a last resort to draw the government into a detailed discussion on the Manipur situation, and elicit a statement from the Prime Minister in the House.
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