We Will Bring Back Love, Mutual Respect, Peace in Manipur, says Rahul Gandhi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday unleashed a blistering attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of total failure in restoring peace in troubled state Manipur.

Rahul was addressing a public meeting in Kalpetta in Kerala on his return to his Lok Sabha constituency Wayanad four months after his disqualification from the parliament. Referring to the 'inaction' of the Prime Minister, he said; "anybody who murders the idea of India can never be a nationalist.”

He hurled several questions at the prime minister;''what have you been doing for the past four months ? Why have you not been to Manipur ? Why have you not tried to stop the violence?

Rahul said the situation in Manipur is as if someone has thrown kerosene all around and set the state on fire. Despite the state being on the edge, the prime minister during his more than two hour speech in Lok Sabha laughed, cracked jokes, smiled and his cabinet colleagues joined him.

The former Congress president said the idea of India represented peace among its people.  “If there is violence, murder, rape , hatred then it is not India,” he said.

The Congress leader said the BJP aims at destroying families. India is a family and they want to divide it. Manipur was a family and they tried to destroy it. Thousands of people were destroyed because of BJP’s wrong policies.

“You think you have divided and destroyed Manipur. But let me assure you, we will bring Manipur back together. We will bring love and mutual respect back to Manipur. You took a couple of months to destroy the state, we will bring back peace even if it takes five years. This is the fight between Congress and BJP,” he said.

Rahul thanked the people of Wayanad for standing beside him during difficult days. “You have protected me, given me respect, love and affection. They can disqualify me 50 times or even 100 times but the bond with people of Wayanad will only grow stronger and stronger," he said amid thunderous applause from the crowd.

Pays rich tributes to Oommen Chandy

The Congress leader said while he was happy to return to Wayand there was also sadness. “I am happy to come back, but I am sad because Oommen Chandy ji is not amongst us. People of Kerala showed how much love and respect they had for him during his funeral. We are thankful for what he did for the people of Kerala.

Distribution of keys of houses built for flood affected families

Rahul Gandhi handed over the keys to beneficiaries of houses built under Sabarmati scheme envisaged by him for flood affected families of Wayanad.

AICC general secretaries K C Venugopal, Tariq Anwar, KPCC president K Sudhakaran, opposition leader V D Satheeshan, Muslim League state president Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, Ramesh Chennithala spoke on the occasion.