Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has held meetings with various civil society organisations during the Manipur leg of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which includes representatives from both Meitei and Kuki communities.
The yatra began in Thoubal near Imphal on Sunday, and after traversing through Imphal East in the inaugural leg, it entered the hilly terrain of Kongpokpi and Senapati which have Kuki population besides Naga tribes.
“Both in Imphal and later on in Kongpokpi, Rahul met representatives belonging to various communities. They presented memoranda to him demanding a sensitive, transparent and accountable government,” said Jairam Ramesh, AICC General Secretary in-charge of Communications.
Ramesh said that all the organisations demanded that Rahul and the Congress should take up the issue of Manipur in the budget session of Parliament and prime minister should visit the state before the Lok Sabha elections. Rahul had a number of brief stopovers during the bus yatra to meet the local people. He also made a few brief speeches atop his customised bus.
People living in relief camps met Rahul Gandhi on Monday, and according to Ramesh, they told Rahul that they have not got any relief from the government. Amongst the people he met today were a truck driver from Mathura and a shopkeeper from Bihar.
The Congress leader also marched on foot at several places and was joined by hundreds of party workers and common people. He greeted them while a number of people clicked selfies with him. In his brief address to the people in Senapati, Rahul said the purpose of starting the yatra from Manipur was to send a powerful message across the country and make the people aware of what people of Manipur have been going through.
Gandhi said he has been meeting a number of people and he can feel and understand their pain, and the tragedy they have gone through. Rahul added he understood what it meant to lose family members and property in the violence.
“There is only one state where two ministers have gone missing. For the last eight months, they have been working online,” Ramesh said. “The BJP won an unprecedented majority in February 2022, and look at what they have done with the mandate within one year,” he said, adding that the crisis in Manipur was the result of the divisive politics of BJP-RSS.
Addressing a press conference at Senapati in Manipur, AICC’s NSUI in-charge Kanhaiya Kumar said the yatra should not be seen through the prism of elections. “The Prime Minister has won an election. He has a plane, bulletproof cars, a Rs 10 lakh suit, SPG. Why is he not coming to Manipur? He is not coming to Manipur not because of security issues, but, because of vote arithmetic,” Kumar said.
