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SENAPATI — The Congress stands with the people of Manipur and wants to make the state peaceful and harmonious again, former party chief Rahul Gandhi said on Monday as he interacted with the people on the second day of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
Starting the yatra this morning in a custom-made Volvo bus, Gandhi also walked for some distance meeting people and enquiring about their problems.
Several people, a number of them women and children, had lined up along the yatra route and cheered on Gandhi as his bus made its way along several busy areas here.
Addressing the people from atop his bus in Senapati, Gandhi said the Congress did a yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and the idea was to bring people of India together.
It was a very successful yatra where we walked over 4,000 km, he said.
"We wanted to do another yatra from east to west and we decided that the most powerful thing would be to start the yatra from Manipur so that the people of India get a sense of what the people of Manipur have been through, the difficulty that they have been through, the struggles they have been through," the Congress leader said.
"I understand that you have faced a tragedy, you have lost family members, you have lost property and I want you to know that we are fully standing with you, we want to bring peace back to Manipur. We want to make Manipur peaceful and harmonious again," Gandhi said.
He said he has been speaking with delegations from the state who have been telling him about the issues the people of Manipur have been facing.
"I hope peace returns to Manipur as soon as possible," Gandhi added.
PM Modi should visit Manipur before LS polls; CSOs tells Cong.
Civil society organisations that met Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra urged the Congress to demand during the upcoming Budget session of Parliament that Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit the violence-hit state before the Lok Sabha polls, the party said on Monday.
The organisations, which met Gandhi separately, also said Manipur needs "sensitive, transparent, accountable and strong" governance, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh told a press conference here as the yatra halted for lunch.
The ethnic violence that broke out in the northeastern state in May last year has claimed more than 180 lives and rendered thousands homeless.
"Earlier when we used to come to Manipur, we used to meet Manipuri organisations but now we are meeting community organisations. That is a difference. All of them are demanding peace," Ramesh said.
Taking a swipe at the BJP-led Manipur government, he claimed that two state ministers are "missing" and working "online".
The prime minister did not even meet Chief Minister N Biren Singh and only greeted him digitally on his birthday, the Congress leader said. Ramesh also claimed that neither the Rajya Sabha MP nor a minister of state from Manipur could meet Modi.
"The civil society organisations told Rahul ji that the Congress and he should demand in the Budget session of Parliament that Modi come to Manipur before the (2024) Lok Sabha elections," Ramesh said.
Hitting out at the prime minister, Ramesh said the only reason for bringing the no-confidence motion was to get the prime minister to break his "silence" on Manipur.