BJP is anti-national, has ‘murdered India in Manipur’: Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said in the Lok Sabha that the Narendra Modi government has “murdered India in Manipur”.

The Congress leader made the statement in his first speech in the Lower House after being reinstated as the MP from Wayanad on August 7. He was reinstated three days after the Supreme Court stayed his conviction in a criminal defamation case.

“India is the voice of its people,” Gandhi said in Parliament on Wednesday during the debate on the no-confidence motion against the Union government. “You murdered that voice in Manipur. This means that you murdered Bharat Mata in Manipur. You have killed India by killing the people of Manipur. You are traitors, not patriots.”

The Congress leader said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not visit the violence-hit state as he does not consider it to be part of India.

Gandhi said he recently went to Manipur to visit relief camps. “I used the word ‘Manipur’, but the truth of today is that Manipur does not exist anymore,” he added. “You have divided Manipur into two parts.”

The former Congress chief said that the Indian Army can bring about peace in Manipur in just a day, but the government was not willing to use the Army’s services.

Gandhi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government of inciting violence in Manipur as well as Haryana. “You are throwing kerosene all over the country,” he said. “You threw kerosene in Manipur, and then lit a spark. Now, you are doing the same in Haryana. You are setting fire to the entire country.”

The Wayanad MP was referring to last week’s communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh and Gurugram districts that left six persons dead.

The Opposition INDIA alliance on Tuesday initiated a debate on a no-confidence motion against the Union government, saying that it did so in order to force Modi to speak about the situation in the Manipur.

At least 187 people have been killed and nearly 60,000 have been forced to flee their homes in the northeastern state since violence broke out on May 3.

The state has reported cases of rape and murder, mobs have looted police armouries and set several homes on fire despite the heavy presence of central security forces.

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, who opened the no-confidence motion debate on Tuesday, had also said that not just Manipur but the whole of India is burning. He added that the Opposition was seeking to break Modi’s “vow of silence” on the unrest in Manipur.

Opposition ran away from debate on Manipur: Smriti Irani

On Wednesday, Union minister Smriti Irani claimed that it was the Opposition, not the government, that ran away from a discussion on the situation in Manipur.

“The minister for parliamentary affairs [Pralhad Joshi] repeatedly called for a discussion on Manipur, as did the home minister [Amit Shah] and [Defence Minister] Rajnath Singh ji,” she said.

Commenting on Gandhi’s remarks about India being “murdered in Manipur”, Irani said: “This was the first time in India’s parliamentary history that someone spoke about the murder of India, and the Congress leaders thumped desks for it.”

The minister for women and child development also said that Manipur is an integral part of India. “Manipur was not divided, nor will it ever be in the future,” she asserted. “A member of the UPA [United Progressive Alliance] said in Tamil Nadu that India only means north India. The Congress and the Gandhi family should comment on this.”

The BJP MP from Amethi said that another Congress leader had in the past called for a referendum on Kashmir, according to PTI. “Was the statement given as per the order of the Congress leadership that a leader talked about referendum in Kashmir?” she asked.

The BJP leader said that Gandhi, during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, said that the Congress would restore Article 370 of the Constitution, which provided special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, she said that the provision would never be restored.

“The valley that India has seen to be soaked in blood, [but] when they went there, they were playing with snow balls,” Irani said, according to PTI. “That was possible after Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi abrogated Article 370.”