Bengaluru: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence on Manipur violence, saying that he knows that his ideology has “burned” the northeastern state.
He also hit out at the RSS and the BJP accusing them of only wanting to grab power without bothering about the pain and sufferings of the people.
While addressing the Indian Youth Congress’s (IYC) National Youth Convention titled ‘Behtar Bharat Ki Buniyaad’ via video conferencing in Bengaluru from Kerala, the former Lok Sabha MP said, “All of you have seen what has happened in Manipur and what is happening there. And you will be surprised that the Prime Minister has not said a word about Manipur.”
The Congress leader said that the Prime Minister of the country must speak
when a state is burning.
“You must have felt that the Prime Minister should have visited Imphal and met people there. If there was any other Prime Minister from earlier times, they would have spoken to the people for sure,” he said.
Slamming the Prime Minister, Rahul Gandhi said, “All of you are surprised why the Prime Minister is not visiting Manipur or speaking about it. It’s because he is the Prime Minister of a select few and the RSS.”
“He knows that his ideology has burned Manipur. But the pain and sorrow of the people of Manipur and the scar on the women of Manipur does not move Modi,” he added.
Attacking the BJP and the RSS, the Congress leader said that both of them want to grab power and are not bothered about the pain and sufferings of the people.
He said there is a fight of ideology going on in the country. “On one hand there is RSS and BJP’s ideology and on the other is Congress’ ideology. There are parties in Opposition, but the fight is between the ideology of the Congress and of the BJP and the RSS.
“Congress’s ideology is of taking all together, spread love and fight against the unequal social system whereas BJP and RSS want select people to run the government with all the wealth confined to very few, and all the institutions remain in control of few people whether its judiciary, election commission, schools, colleges or Army,” he said.
The Congress leader said that the institutions and the country belong to every individual of every caste, religion and everyone should be protected and
there should be brotherhood.
“The BJP and the RSS want power. For power they can do anything. They can burn any state whether it is Manipur and others like UP, Haryana and Punjab because they need power. They don’t get affected by the pain and they only need power and this is the fight,” he said.
When the former Lok Sabha MP from Kerala’s Wayanad joined the youth convention in Bengaluru via video conferencing, the workers raised slogans calling him the next Prime Minister of India.
The Congress leader is currently in Kerala Arya Vaidya Shala for his knee treatment.
Gandhi had also visited Manipur last month for two days and met the victim families and the people taking refuge in the relief camps. He also met the Governor and appealed for peace in the northeastern state.
The Congress and other opposition parties have been demanding a statement
from the Prime Minister over the situation in Manipur in both houses of Parliament and a detailed discussion over the issue in the state.
Notably, ethnic clashes erupted in Manipur on May 3 and since then hundreds of people have died while thousands have been forced to take refuge in the relief camps.
–IANS