'Peace Cannot Return To Violence-Hit Manipur Until...': Gaurav Gogoi Slams PM Modi's I-Day Speech

Manipur Violence: Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi said peace cannot prevail in the strife-torn state unless talks were held on reconciliation between the two warring communities.

Deputy Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi

Source : PTI

Congress's Assam MP Gaurav Gogoi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for saying in his Independence Day address that violence-hit Manipur was limping back to normalcy. Gogoi said peace cannot prevail in the strife-torn state unless talks were held on reconciliation between the two warring communities.

Speaking to media persons in Guwahati, the deputy leader of Congress in Lok Sabha said, "Prime Minister Modi has deluded the people of the country in his Independence Day speech by saying that Manipur is limping back to normalcy. The truth is peace cannot return to the violence-hit state until and unless there are over 6,000 sophisticated weapons and around six lakh ammunition available with the miscreants."

READ | India Stands With Manipur, Peace Returning To State, Says PM Modi

"Both the communities in the state are unhappy with the performance of Chief Minister N Biren Singh and it is really very unfortunate that the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has been continuously supporting him. Even though Chief Minister Singh is in the peace committee, why has it miserably failed to usher in peace in the state," Gogoi questioned.

On renaming the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) as Prime Ministers' Museum and Library Society, Gogoi said the Centre should have built a new and bigger museum for all the former PMs of the country. 

"The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library was a actually a house that belonged to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and after his demise, it was converted into a museum. If the government really wanted to build a museum dedicated to the former Prime Ministers, a new and modern museum could have been built. It is nothing but a political move of BJP to insult the Gandhi family, right from Jawaharlal Nehru to Rahul Gandhi," Gogoi said.

Training his guns on the BJP, the Assam MP said the saffron party's only job was to defame the Gandhi family.

"But the people of the country have witnessed that even a vegetable vendor in the Azadpur Mandi expressed his desire to meet Rahul Gandhi and the very next day his desire was fulfilled. This is the difference between the Congress and the BJP. Prime Minister Modi meets Ambani and Adani but Rahul Gandhi meets a common man," Gogoi said.

On the recent delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in Assam, Gogoi wondered why the Election Commission decided not to wait for the Supreme Court's verdict and hastily published the final order.

"Why the Chief Justice of India was removed from the selection panel of the Election Commission. The BJP wants to prove that the Election Commission is unbiased and it can design the delineation as according to their electoral benefits," he said.