Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his foreign tour, the Congress on Saturday asked why is the prime minister “steadfastly refusing” to visit Manipur, a state marred by ethnic violence for over a year.
Calling his three-nation tour a “periodic foreign jaunt”, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “For next 3 days, we will be spared the non-biological PM's lie-surplus, dignity-deficit election campaign. He is off on his periodic foreign jaunt, where he will attempt to score domestic political points rather than engage in any pretence of statesmanship.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is embarking on a three-nation on Saturday. He will travel to Brazil to attend the annual G20 Summit and to Nigeria and Guyana as part of the tour.
The Congress has been urging the prime minister to visit Manipur and questioned why he is refusing to do so. “Why is Mr Narendra Modi steadfastly refusing to visit the troubled state of Manipur that has been torn apart so tragically since May 2023? His refusal to do so is simply beyond any understanding,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
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The Congress leader said the people of Manipur deserve PM’s visit. “The people of Manipur, who have seen and are continuing to experience so much agony and suffering daily, surely deserve such a visit,” he said.
The ethnic violence in Manipur and the Centre’s response to it was Congress’s key poll plank during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities has claimed more than 200 lives in Manipur since May last year. Congress even said in its poll manifesto that it would dismiss the Manipur government if it came to power for poor handling of the violence.