Congress MP Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Modi government in his address to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, 9 August.
Gandhi criticised the government's handling of the Manipur situation as part of the no-confidence motion debate that has been taken up by the Lok Sabha since Tuesday.
"The BJP government murdered India in Manipur. That is why the prime minister cannot go to Manipur," Gandhi said. He further alleged that PM Modi did not consider Manipur to be part of India.
Gandhi's speech comes just days after he was reinstated as an MP, after the Supreme Court stayed his conviction in the 'Modi' surname case.
Here are the key highlights from Rahul Gandhi's 36-minute long speech:
Gandhi began his speech by thanking the Lok Sabha speaker for reinstating him as an MP in the House. "My speech today will not be focused on Adani. It will be focused towards another direction. Today, I will speak from the heart, not brain," he said.
"A few days back, I went to Manipur. Our PM didn't go, not even to this day, because for him Manipur is not India. I used the word 'Manipur' but the truth is that Manipur does not remain anymore. You have divided Manipur into two. You have divided and broken Manipur..." Gandhi said.
Elaborating on his Manipur visit, Rahul Gandhi said, "I had gone to relief camps in Manipur. In the relief camps, I spoke to the women and the children there, which our PM has not yet done till today. I asked a women there, 'Sister, what happened to you?' She said, "My little son, I had only one son, in front of my eyes, they shot him. Throughout the night, I sat with his dead body and then I got scared that I had left my home and that I had left everything I had." I asked her, "You must have brought something." She replied, "No, only my clothes are with me." Then, she searched around and pulled out a photo and said that it was all she had left."
"I asked another woman there, "What happened to you?" Just as I asked this question, in one second, she started gasping and fainted in front of me."
"Bharat ek awaaz hai, Bharat hamari janta ki awaaz hai, dil ki awaaz hai. Uss awaaz ki hatya aapne Manipur mein ki. Iska matlab Bharat Mata ki hatya aapne Manipur mein ki...You killed India by killing the people of Manipur. You are a traitor, you are not a patriot," he continued.
"The Indian Army can restore peace in Manipur in a day, but the government is not deploying them because the government wants to murder India in Manipur," Gandhi said.
"Lanka was not set on fire by Lord Hanuman, nor was Ravan killed by Ram; they both perished because of Ravan's arrogance," Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha.
"You are throwing kerosene in the whole country. You did that in Manipur and lit a fire and then you did the same in Haryana," the Congress leader alleged.
On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) responded by alleging that insurgency had thrived in the northeast under the Congress regime. "The Congress party needs to apologise to India," said Union Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju.
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