New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday assured strife-torn Manipur’s people including women and daughters that “the country is with you” and “peace will be restored in the coming time”
“Both the State and Central governments are doing everything possible to ensure that the accused get the strictest punishment. I want to assure the people that peace will be restored in Manipur in the coming time. I want to tell the people of Manipur including women and daughters of Manipur that the country is with you,” the Prime Minister said replying to the No Confidence Motion against him which was defeated.
Modi’s assertion comes as a big support to the beleaguered Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, the demand for whose removal has been continuing ever since the uncontrolled ethnic clashes erupted on May 3.
With the Opposition demanding the PM to speak on Manipur and staging a walkout midway during his long speech, Modi said the House could have debated the Manipur issue alone in detail but since the Opposition brought in the No Confidence Motion and targeted his dispensation on issues other than the strife-torn State, he too was giving a detailed counter. “They didn’t want to discuss Manipur. They didn’t have the intention,” he charged.
The Prime Minister didn’t go into the details of Manipur’s violence saying Home Minister Amit Shah had already explained everything in detail, but hit out at the Congress for “playing politics” and cited examples of the situation in the State and northeast under its long rule.
“Whose government was there in Manipur when everything used to happen according to the wishes of insurgent organisations? Whose government was there in Manipur when Mahatma Gandhi’s picture was not allowed in government offices? Whose government was there in Manipur when the decision to not allow the national anthem in schools was taken,” Modi asked and the NDA members replied in chorus “Congress, Congress”.
“Their (opposition) pain is selective. They cannot think beyond politics,” Modi said and went on to cite Congress’s handling of northeast.
“On 5th March 1966, Congress had its Air Force attack the helpless citizens in Mizoram. Congress should answer if it was the Air Force of any other country. Were the people of Mizoram not the citizens of my country? Was their security not the responsibility of the Government of India,” the Prime Minister enlisted.
“In 1962, I still recall the radio broadcast of Jawaharlal Nehru when he said my heart goes out to the people of Assam,” he said inferring Nehru left the people of Assam to fend for themselves during the Indo-China war,
Taking on the socialists, he pointed out how Ram Manohar Lohia made serious allegations against Jawahar Lal Nehru that he did not want the development of the northeast.
Attacking the Opposition, he said Parliament is not the platform of politics, it’s an important institution. “It’s run on taxpayers’ money but the Opposition does not care about these things. Politics won’t help to run the country and they have broken the trust of the people.”
Asserting his Ministers and he himself have been visiting northeast at regular intervals and under his rule since 2014 northeast has witnessed all-round development, the Prime Minister said the country has faced situation more serious than Manipur before but as a nation, we worked together.
For us, the northeast is a part of our heart. Bandhs and blockades are a thing of the past in Manipur and we have to keep politics out of violence to establish peace as early as possible. The way South East Asia and ASEAN countries are developing, the day isn’t far when the northeast will develop and become very important. I can see the glorious years of the northeast coming soon,” he said.
Ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and Kukis that erupted on May 3 have claimed more than 150 lives even as thousands of people have been displaced.
