New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (August 15) once again urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Manipur that has been engulfed in ethnic violence between Kuki and Meitei communities since May last year.
In the one year since violence broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, Modi undertook 162 official visits, including 14 overseas trips as of May 4, 2024, but none to the crisis-ridden state.
The Rae Bareli MP said he met a group of Manipuri people living in Delhi who shared their ordeal with him. “They spoke of the pain of being separated from loved ones and the physical and mental toll the conflict has taken on their communities,” Gandhi said in a post on X.
“This is the harsh reality our brothers and sisters in Manipur endure – a state of constant fear,” he added.
Gandhi, who is also the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, urged both the Union and Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Manipur government to work towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict there at the earliest.
“As we celebrate Independence Day, let us reflect on the plight of Manipur, where true freedom remains elusive. I urge the prime minister once again to visit Manipur and impress upon both central and state governments to work towards a peaceful resolution at the earliest,” the former Congress president said.
Ethnic violence in the state has claimed more than 230 lives and rendered more than 60,000 people homeless in Manipur since May last year.
While Union home minister Amit Shah had visited the state when the violence first broke out in May, he only went back to the state 11 months later, to campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. BJP lost both the Lok Sabha seats to Congress in the general elections.
In July this year, Manipur MP Alfred Kan-Ngam Arthur tore into Modi during his parliament speech saying, “Indian state is a mute spectator” to the violence and “civil war like situation” in Manipur, he said.
The MP was speaking during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the president’s address after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“And yet our Prime Minister is mute, not even a word. The presidential address doesn’t even mention it. I say that the silence is not normal.” He equated the silence of the Modi government to the colonial era, and asked the House, “does it mean that people of the Northeast and Manipur in particular don’t matter?”
The second Congress MP from Manipur, Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, too accused the ruling BJP and Modi for ignoring the “hurt, anger and sufferings” of 60,000 people displaced in the state due to the ongoing violence which has forced them to take shelter in relief camps under wretched conditions.
