Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.
Credit: PTI
New Delhi: Congress on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his “less than five hour” visit to Manipur, with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge calling it a “farce, tokenism, and a grave insult to a wounded people”.
Kharge said the Prime Minister's last visit to Manipur was in January 2022 “for elections”.
Recalling that Manipur witnessed 864 days of violence in which 300 lives were lost, 67,000 displaced and over 1,500 injured, he said, Modi had made 46 foreign trips since violence erupted in May 2023 but did not visit Manipur for once to “share two words of sympathy with your own citizens.
“Your three -hour pit shop in Manipur is not compassion– it is farce, tokenism, and a grave insult to wounded people,”he said, adding his visit was “nothing but a cowardly escape from hearing the cries of people in relief camps”.
Alleging that the “double engine” government has “bulldozed innocent lives of Manipur”, Kharge alleged that the “gross incompetence and complicity” of Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and “betrayal” of communities was “shielded from scrutiny” by imposing President’s Rule in the state.
Kharge alleged that the “grand ceremony” to welcome Modi was a “cruel prick to the wounds of those still suffering because of your own abdication of basic Constitutional responsibilities. In the words of your own… Where is your 'raj dharma?”
Claiming that Modi was treating his visit as a “PR (public relations) event” and an occasion to celebrate, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said Modi’s visit was a “display of how sorely lacking in empathy and compassion” a leader can be.
“This visit too, is a half-hearted measure with him spending barely a few hours there, and is clubbed with a visit to Mizoram. Neither has his government presented a solution to address the deep social rift that caused the civil war, nor do they have the courage to bring warring groups together and make a genuine attempt at peace,” he said.
Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said, “the people of Manipur have waited patiently for the Prime Minister to visit the state. He has finally obliged them today. But he was in the state, from landing till take-off, for less than five hours. The PM has the time (and the inclination) to spend days campaigning and traveling across the world. But is Manipur worth only so much to him? It is shockingly insensitive.”