DELAYED. PIT STOP. TOKENISM: CONG

CRITICAL VIEW| Kharge accused PM and Home Minister of "gross incompetence and complicity in betraying all communities. Where is your 'Rajdharma'? Congress leader asked

- GAURAV VIVEK BHATNAGAR

The Congress, which had over the last two years regularly asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not visiting violence-torn Manipur, on Saturday described his visit to the north-eastern state as a "pit stop" and a "farce, tokenism and a grave insult to a wounded people".

In a detailed open note to Modi over "X", Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote that the PM's "three-hour pit stop" was "not compassion" but a "farce, tokenism and a grave insult to a wounded people".

He also charged that the Prime Minister's roadshow in Imphal and Churachandpur was "nothing but a cowardly escape from hearing the cries of people in relief camps!"

Kharge pointedly noted that there had been "864 days of violence" in which 300 lives were lost, 1,500 people were injured and 67,000 people got displaced. He stated that during this period the PM made 46 foreign trips since, "but not a single visit to share two words of sympathy" with his own citizens.

The Congress president recalled that Modi's last visit to Manipur was in January 2022 and that was for elections. He accused the PM and Home Minister Amit Shah of "gross incompetence and complicity in betraying all communities" and claimed that they were "shielded from scrutiny" through imposition of President's Rule in the state.