Manipur events shameful, playing politics with them more so: Amit Shah

NEW DELHI: Rebutting the charge of mishandling the situation in Manipur, home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said that while the ethnic violence and atrocities on women have shamed the country, efforts to derive political mileage out of the tragic crisis were even more shameful.
In a 2-hour-13 minute speech, one of the longest in Parliament, the home minister came out with an aggressive point-by-point rebuttal of the charges of opposition parties, which have cited the trouble in Manipur and PM Modi's "silence" over it.
"I am the home minister and I owe it to the country and Parliament to explain what happened in Manipur. I wrote a letter to the Speaker even before a ruckus was created here over the issue. But I was denied the opportunity because your intent was to create disturbance and hold up Parliament," he said.
Mentioning Rahul Gandhi's visit to Manipur, Shah said, "He (Rahul) wanted to visit Churachandpur and we said fine, but advised him to take chopper because of the security situation. He created a 3-hour drama, insisting that he would take the road, only to take the chopper the following day."
Shah rejected the demand for the dismissal of the state government headed by BJP's N Biren Singh. "You apply Article 356 to dismiss a government if a chief minister is not cooperating. But he cooperated and agreed to appoint the Centre's nominees as security advisor, chief secretary and the DGP," Shah said.
While Shah dealt with Manipur at length, he appeared to outline BJP's campaign themes for the 2024 Lok Sabha contest. "This no-confidence motion has been brought to sow confusion. The effort is bound to fail because people are clear about their intent to give another term to PM Modi."
Picking up from where the PM had left off in the morning when he built upon Gandhi ji's 'Quit India' call to come up with "Corruption Quit India, Dynasty Quit India, Appeasement Quit India" theme, Shah worked the NDA benches to chant it after him in what looked like a pointer to one of the possible planks for the forthcoming polls.
He reeled off figures to list the Modi government's "successes" across the entire gamut: poverty reduction, welfare measures, internal and external security, farm income, fight against Covid and India's growing wealth and international stock. He slammed Congress by recalling the corruption charges that sank UPA and for the nomenclature switch from UPA to INDIA bloc. "Business houses change names when they go bankrupt. You see the same story here, UPA was left with no credibility," he said.
He was sharp with Leader of Opposition Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury when he tried to interrupt him. "You cannot eat into my time just because you, despite being the Leader of the Opposition, have been denied the opportunity to speak. In a sharp riposte to the charge of Supriya Sule that BJP was engaged in toppling governments, Shah reminded NCP that it was her father Sharad Pawar who was the first to bring down a government in Maharashtra.