Country is with Manipur, peace will prevail: Modi
NEW DELHI: With barely eight months to go for the general elections, the Modi government on Thursday defeated by voice vote a no-trust motion after three days of debate in the Lok Sabha amid an Opposition walkout.
Replying to the motion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the people of Manipur that the Centre and the state governments were working together to restore peace in the violence-hit state and asserted that those responsible for heinous crimes against women will not be spared. “The Northeast is a piece of our heart... The problems of Manipur are being presented in such a manner as if they had begun in the recent past,” Modi said.
“I would like to assure all the citizens that peace will prevail in Manipur soon. I would like to assure the people of Manipur, especially women, that the country is with you. Parliament is with you,” said Modi just after the Opposition staged a walkout midway through the speech as Manipur didn’t figure in it till then. The mention of Manipur came after an hour and 40 minutes of the address.
In the speech that lasted around two hours and 20 minutes, the PM kept his focus on attacking Congress, the failures of UPA governments and the Opposition bloc INDIA. In a no-holds-barred attack on the Congress, Modi held the grand old party and its politics responsible for the problems of the Northeast. He recalled incidents like the use of the Air Force to attack the people in Mizoram, to point at the Congress's “neglect” of the region.
As for the no-trust motion, he recalled having said in 2018 that “it was not a floor test for us but for them.” Modi added that in 2028, when the Opposition moves another no-confidence motion, India would have become the third-largest economy in the world.
In a stinging attack against the INDIA bloc, he said changing their name will not change their fortunes. “This is a ghamandia (arrogant) alliance. The first I in INDIA stands for the arrogance of parties and the other I for one family’s arrogance,” he charged. The Opposition, he said, is all about loot ki dukan (loot shop) and nafrat ka bazaar (hate bazaar), in what was seen as a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s frequent pitch on mohabbat ki dukan (love shop).