Assam Congress hits out at PM Modi’s Manipur visit, calls it ‘too little, too late’

Guwahati: The Assam unit of Congress, on Monday, criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Manipur, saying that his intervention came more than two years too late, while the state endured a prolonged spell of ethnic unrest.

Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, senior Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi highlighted what he described as the Prime Minister’s misplaced priorities.

“For more than two-and-a-half years, Manipur was burning. During that time, the Prime Minister toured 39 foreign countries, some of them more than once. Yet, he did not find time to visit Manipur until now,” Bordoloi said.

The Congress termed PM Modi’s arrival in the strife-torn state as “too little, too late”, contending that the crisis warranted immediate attention from the country’s top leadership when communal clashes first broke out in May 2023.

Congress leaders reminded that they had repeatedly urged Prime Minister Modi to visit Manipur during the height of the violence, but their appeals went unheeded.

The Opposition Congress also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of peddling misinformation during PM Modi’s northeastern tour.

Bordoloi took exception to the remarks made against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Assam, alleging that the Prime Minister had distorted facts about the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition’s position during Operation Sindoor.

“The record is clear — Rahul Gandhi has always supported the Indian armed forces. To suggest otherwise is deliberate misrepresentation,” he asserted.

The Congress also questioned the BJP’s tendency to invoke India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in political attacks.

Bordoloi said such accusations were not only historically unfounded but also required factual verification before being repeated in public platforms.

Leader of Opposition in the Assam Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, added another dimension to the criticism, pointing to what he described as contradictions in the BJP’s political messaging.

Referring to the celebrations of Bharat Ratna Bhupen Hazarika’s birth centenary, Saikia remarked that while the legendary singer promoted harmony and brotherhood through his songs, the BJP’s divisive rhetoric stood in sharp contrast to those ideals.

With these observations, the Congress sought to portray the BJP’s approach to Manipur and the Northeast as inconsistent, reactive, and guided by political expediency rather than genuine concern for the people.

IANS