Rahul Gandhi to visit Kuki and Meitei camps in Manipur, first time as Leader of Opposition

The visit to try and provide a healing touch comes days after Rahul led the INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha in protesting the Prime Minister’s failure to visit the state or speak about it

Rahul Gandhi addresses party workers in Ahmedabad on Saturday.: PTI picture.

TT, Bureau, New Delhi, 08.07.24 : Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is scheduled to be in seared Manipur on Monday; his presence will, among other things, emphasise an absence — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s.

The visit to try and provide a healing touch comes days after Rahul led the INDIA

bloc in the Lok Sabha in protesting the Prime Minister’s failure to visit the state or speak about it.

This will be Rahul’s third visit to Manipur since the ethnic violence between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos broke out on May 3 last year, and his first after the Congress wrested both the state’s Lok Sabha seats last month.

The visit comes at a time when all trust has broken down between the Kuki-Zos on the one hand and the Meiteis and the Meitei-dominated state BJP government on the other, as acknowledged even by the Supreme Court last week.

“Rahulji, naturally, may like to check whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim of normalcy returning to Manipur is correct or a lie,” Manipur state Congress working president K. Devabrata Singh said.

Modi had spoken not a word on Manipur in the Lok Sabha despite a sloganeering Opposition’s demand for a statement during his reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address.

However, the Prime Minister did mention the state in his speech in the Rajya Sabha, claiming normalcy was returning and urging the Opposition not to play politics on Manipur.

Devabrata said that apart from making a first-hand assessment of the Manipur situation, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha “will be appealing for peace”.

Devabrata said Rahul was deeply concerned at the outbreak of fresh violence last month in Jiribam district, where a Meitei man’s body was discovered and houses were torched.

During his daylong visit, Rahul is expected to visit four relief camps — two each of Meiteis and Kuki-Zos.

He will enter Manipur by road from Fulertal in Cachar, Assam, after visiting a refugee camp at Thalai in Fulertal.

Kuki-Zo people, especially from the Hmar tribes that are considered part of the greater Zo community, are taking shelter in this camp, about 11km from the Jiribam district headquarters.

From Fulertal, Rahul will travel by road to Jiribam and meet Meiteis at a relief camp there.

He will then travel back to Silchar in Assam by road and then fly into Imphal and be driven to Churachandpur to visit a Kuki-Zo camp.

The last camp on his schedule is in Moirang in Bishnupur district, bordering Churachandpur, where he will meet displaced Meiteis.

Also on his schedule is a meeting with the Manipur governor.

“(Rahul) Gandhi has chosen to visit Manipur where peace is necessary.... We are grateful that he chose to visit the state after being chosen as leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha,” PTI quoted a Congress leader in Manipur as saying.

Earlier this year, Rahul had started the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, a move that helped the Congress politically not just in the state but also elsewhere in the region. He had earlier visited the state in June last year, weeks after the unrest had broken out.

Security has been tightened in Jiribam district ahead of the visit, with authorities imposing a ban on aerial photography and videography using drones, balloons or any other means, a PTI report said quoting officials.

Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court acknowledged how deep the sectarian poison had seeped into Manipur’s institutions when it directed medical treatment of a Kuki undertrial from the state at an Assam hospital.

The apex court said it did not trust the Manipur government and underlined that the man had been denied care because of the community he belonged to.

Modi had asserted in the Rajya Sabha on July 3 that violence was steadily declining in Manipur and schools had reopened in most parts of the state, and that efforts were on to ensure a return of complete normalcy.

He said the Centre was working with the state government and others to restore peace to the state.

Over 200 people have died in the Manipur violence and more than 60,000 have been displaced.