Amit Shah’s ‘PM called me at 4.30am’ reply to Rahul Gandhi’s attack over Manipur
Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday asserted that the Centre has been working hard on bringing peace to Manipur, where ethnic violence broke out in early May killing more than 150 people so far.
Shah was speaking during the no-confidence motion debate in Lok Sabha, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, earlier in the day, tore into the Narendra Modi government over its handling of the violence in Manipur, alleging the politics of the BJP has “harmed Bharat Mata” in the state.
“I want to let the country know, the Prime Minister called me at 4.30am, and then woke me up again with a phone call the next day at 6am. For three straight days, we worked from here to ensure peace,” Amit Shah said in what was the government’s strongest response to the Opposition’s charges on Manipur in the ongoing monsoon session.
“For three days, continuously, we worked round the clock. We held 16 video conferences, sent 36,000 CAPF (central cops) personnel immediately, used air force planes, changed the Chief Secretary and DGP (police chief), sent an adviser from Surat; the Centre sent chief secretary and DGP, too. All this was done on May 4 itself,” Shah told the Lower House.
As the Lok Sabha witnessed some fireworks during the debate on the no-confidence motion for the second day during which Gandhi also said that the members of the ruling party were “not protectors” of India, Shah appealed with folded hands for peace in Manipur and urged the warring Kuki and Meitei communities to hold talks with the Centre to resolve the issue that has triggered the ethnic violence.
“In Manipur, they (BJP) have harmed Hindustan. Their politics has harmed Hindustan in Manipur,” Gandhi alleged.
The Lok Sabha adopted a resolution read out by Speaker Om Birla appealing for peace in Manipur and it was enthusiastically supported by the BJP-led NDA members in the presence of the opposition.
Hours after Gandhi’s blistering attack on the prime minister for not visiting the strife-torn Manipur, a combative Shah, who hit back and spoke on a range of issues including on the several scams during the tenure of the Congress-led UPA, urged the opposition not to politicise the ethnic violence in Manipur that erupted on May 3.
‘Whatever happened in Manipur is shameful, but…’: Amit Shah
“I agree with the Opposition that there is a cycle of violence in Manipur … Nobody can support such incidents. Whatever happened is shameful, but to politicise those events is even more shameful,” Shah said in his nearly two-hour-long intervention.
Shah also questioned the intention of leaking the video of two women being paraded naked in Manipur just ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament which began on July 20. The video of the incident which happened on May 4 surfaced on July 19.
Modi is scheduled to reply to the debate on August 10 which will be followed by voting — the outcome of which is already known with the numbers comfortably stacked in favour of the government.