‘Blood, murder everywhere and PM Modi …’: Rahul Gandhi fires fresh salvo over Manipur issue | India News

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday sharpened his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the situation in Manipur and again questioned him for not visiting the strife-torn northeastern state.

Rahul was addressing party workers in his parliamentary constituency Wayanad. He was earlier accorded a grand welcome by Congress since this is his first visit to the Kerala district after the restoration of his Lok Sabha membership.
Repeating his earlier attacks on Modi, Rahul said that the Prime Minister spoke about Manipur for just 2 minutes in his over 2-hour long speech on the no-trust debate in Lok Sabha.

“There is blood everywhere, there is murder everywhere, rape everywhere. That is the situation in Manipur and the Prime Minister spoke for 2 hours, 13 minutes in Parliament but he spoke on Manipur for 2 minutes. He laughed, joked. His cabinet laughed, joked …” Rahul said.
Stepping up his attack, Rahul said that PM Modi “spent just two minutes talking about the murder of ‘Bharat Mata’.”
“How dare you do this? How can you disrespect the idea of India? Why have you not been there? Why have you not tried to stop the violence? Because you’re not a nationalist. Anybody who murders the idea of India cannot be a nationalist,” Rahul asserted.
The Wayanad MP said that he visited the troubled northeastern state sometime back and was shocked at what he experienced there.
“I have been in politics for 19 years now and I never experienced what I experienced in Manipur … there are thousands of people in Manipur who have suffered this. Someone’s house has been burnt down, someone’s sister has been raped, and someone’s brother and parents have been killed. It is as if somebody threw kerosene across Manipur and set it on fire,” the Congress leader said.
Targeting the BJP and RSS, Rahul said they do not understand what a family is and accused them of “burning Manipur”.
“They don’t understand that the more they try to separate you and me, the closer we will become. They think that if we disqualify Rahul Gandhi, his relationship with Wayanad will break. If you disqualify Rahul Gandhi, his relationship with Wayanad will become even stronger,” he said.
He added that Congress will bring back love in Manipur.
Earlier today, Rahul received a grand welcome by Congress workers in Wayanad.
Hundreds of Congress workers, who assembled at the reception venue, raised slogans in support of Rahul as he reached there at 5.30pm.
Leaders of the Congress-led opposition alliance UDF in Kerala welcomed him.
Rahul was reinstated as MP from Wayanad after the Lok Sabha Secretariat issued a notification in the wake of the Supreme Court staying his conviction in a defamation case last week.
He also got back his 12, Tughlaq Lane bungalow in the national capital after the court relief.
(With inputs from PTI)