Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi on Tuesday said his party and its INDIA alliance partners had brought the no-confidence motion against the government because Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept mum on Manipur violence, did not visit the State, or dismiss State Chief Minister Biren Singh for his failures.

Initiating the debate on the motion in the Lok Sabha, Gogoi thanked Speaker Om Birla for accepting the motion, and said if Manipur is burning today, it is really India that is burning, and if Manipur is divided today, India too is divided.

Advertisement

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as also Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh were present in the House.

Gogoi said the Opposition just wanted the Prime Minister to come to the House, express concern over Manipur violence, and the Opposition would have supported him. This would have sent a good message. Instead he neither came to the Lok Sabha, nor Rajya Sabha, and “so we were forced to bring the motion.”

Gogoi said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Manipur, INDIA partners visited Manipur and even Home Minister Amit Shah visited the State, but not the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister took 80 days to say something on Manipur and that too for just 30 seconds, with no word of sympathy, Gogoi said. The member said the Prime Minister’s words matter, more than those of any Minister or MP.

Gogoi said when elections came, the NDA changed its Chief Ministers in Gujarat twice, in Uttarakhand four times, and even once in Tripura. Why was the Manipur Chief Minister not dismissed, when he himself admitted intelligence failure. There were 150 dead, 5000 houses burnt and thousands had to take shelter in camps.

This is not the first time when Manipur witnessed violence, he said. But never before such division in society was noticed in the State, never such anger was seen in the two sides and there was an open talk of revenge, Gogoi said.

There was a division between those who lived in the hills and those in the Valley, he said. “There are two Manipurs today due to your policy,” the Congress member said. Late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had talked of Rajdharma and that there could be no discrimination between different sections of people, he said.

Gogoi said the worst sufferers of the violence were women and children. Relatives of people who died for the country were killed and burnt alive. The ruling party said the Opposition had gone to the State for a photo-op, he said. The Opposition had found religious places burnt, the internet was shut and children were unable to go to school.

In Manipur, he said jungles were being cut for poppy cultivation, and NCRB data showed drug-related crime cases had shot up. Several thousand AK47s, grenades, six lakh bullets were looted from a police unit. These could be used against armed forces, police and innocent citizens, he said.

The Home Ministry’s 51-member committee never met, he said. Gogoi said the Prime Minister was silent on the wrestlers’ allegations of sexual misconduct against them. When violence took place in Manipur, the Prime Minister was touring Karnataka for elections.

Gogoi said the Opposition would support Modi if he went to Manipur. He should take an all-party delegation there, and meet social groups. The Prime Minister should come to Parliament and give his view. All he is doing is trying to spoil the image of the INDIA alliance, Gogoi said.

The BJP was making a weapon of hatred for the next elections, and “we will open shops of love everywhere,” the Congress MP said. The Government’s economic policies favoured the rich only; the GDP growth or fastest growing economy claims meant nothing for the poor. As farmers committed suicides, how could the Government hope to win the next elections, he said.

For several minutes, the debate could not progress because the Sansad TV scroll in the Lok Sabha chamber did not show the no-confidence motion was under discussion.

In its place, business related to several Central Ministries was displayed. The Speaker asked the members to ignore the mistake and continue the debate, but they agreed only when the scroll showed the correct agenda in progress.

Supriya Sule (NCP) said the only word that defined the current Government was hubris. All its functionaries and Ministers were condemning the Opposition and claiming its victory in the next polls. In nine years, she said, the Government had toppled nine State governments.

Cooperative federalism, inflation, law and order were all in bad shape. The promise of doubling income for farmers was not kept. The running of Vande Bharat trains was a sign of development but they were not affordable for the common man, and because of them hundreds of stoppages of other trains for the poor had been discontinued, stopping movement of people in search of employment.

In Manipur, 60,000 people were displaced, 40,000 were in camps and 10,000 FIRs were registered, Sule said. Still, the Chief Minister was not dismissed, she said. The Government’s debt and external borrowings had reached huge proportions, she said and asked how the Government would repay them.