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Shah leads charge as Centre hits back in no-trust debate
Though the bulk of his speech was devoted to Manipur, Shah also spoke at length about the achievements of the Narendra Modi government.
The entire country is pained by the shameful violence in Manipur, but indulging in politics over it is even more shameful, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday as he defended the government over the ethnic clashes that have claimed over 150 lives, and appealed with “folded hands” to warring communities to end the riots and hold talks.
Speaking on the second day of the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, Shah said that the Centre had no intention to alter the demography of the state, announced the fencing along the Myanmar border had been expedited, and presented data to show that the clashes were ebbing in Manipur. He condemned the viral video showing two Kuki women being stripped and paraded naked by a mob, but questioned why the 30-second clip surfaced a day before the monsoon session and why it was not handed over to the police.
“For the sake of society, we are ashamed of what happened [in Manipur]. There is no doubt about this. However shameful it is what transpired, it is even more shameful to indulge in politics over it,” he said.
The minister also said that 152 people were killed, 14,898 people arrested and 1,106 first information reports (FIRs) registered since violence erupted on May 3.
“I want to let the country know, the Prime Minister called me at 4.30am, and then woke me up again with a phone call the next day at 6am. For three straight days, we worked from here to ensure peace,” he said in what was the government’s strongest response to the Opposition’s charges on Manipur in the ongoing monsoon session.
“We held 16 video conferences, we mobilised 16,000 paramilitary personnel using air force planes, the chief secretary was changed, the director general of police was changed, a security adviser was deputed... All this was done by May 4 – a day after clashes broke out,” he added.
Though the bulk of his speech was devoted to Manipur, Shah also spoke at length about the achievements of the Narendra Modi government, and described how the internal security situation had drastically improved in Jammu & Kashmir, Maoist-affected areas and the Northeast. He announced that the government will not hold dialogue with Pakistan but will speak to young people in the region. He also assured the House that Tahawwur Rana, an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, will be deported to India soon to face trials.
The Opposition has jammed a significant chunk of the monsoon session demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak on Manipur inside the House, and has argued that it brought the no confidence motion – the second faced by the Narendra Modi government and the first after 2018 – to make the PM speak on the issue. The first day of the debate saw Opposition members attacking the government over Manipur.
But Shah criticised the Opposition for its parliamentary tactics. “I’ve been ready for a debate on Manipur from Day 1. But they [Opposition] did not want it. They just want to protest. And if they were unhappy with what I had to say, then they could have asked for the PM’s statement. But they have not let any debate take place in the House. They have not let the home minister deliver arguments on an important issue like Manipur, what kind of democratic system do they want?” he asked during the nearly two-hours-long speech.
He also attacked the Congress.
“During the Congress rule, there were numerous incidents of violence in Manipur, yet no home minister visited there. I stayed there for 3 days, and our MoS (minister of state) Nityanand Rai stayed there continuously for 23 days,” he said.
He cited Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent Manipur trip as an example of politics during the violence and said Gandhi refused to go to Churachandpur in a helicopter and insisted on travelling by road. “He only wanted to do politics there,” the minister said.
He said during PM Narasimha Rao’s time, a conflict between the Naga and Kuki communities killed 750 people and displaced 45,000. “Despite such a tragic incident, did the tribal minister go there? No, they didn’t. Did the social welfare minister go? No, they didn’t,” Shah said.
The home minister blamed a Manipur high court order – which proposed a tweak to the state’s reservation matrix and adding the dominant Meitei community to the scheduled tribe list – for the violence.
“I urge both communities (Kukis and Meiteis) to sit with the Centre and talk to resolve the issue. We do not wish to change the demography. I am talking to them personally. Please do not politicise this,” Shah said.
He also appeared to rule out a change of guard in the state, defending embattled chief minister N Biren Singh. “They ask why Article 356 (President’s Rule) was not imposed. Article 356 can only be invoked when the state government is not cooperating with the Centre. The CM should only be changed when he is not cooperating,” he said.
Shah’s intervention came hours after Rahul Gandhi attacked the Centre over Manipur and blamed Modi for not visiting the strife-torn state.
In his response, the home minister argued that the BJP had brought peace to Manipur over the last six years with a drop in militant activity.
He condemned the viral video of assault of two Kuki women that sparked a nationwide outcry earlier this month. “Any act such as this committed anywhere in the world is a blot on society as a whole. No one can support acts like these, not us, not the House, not the Opposition,” he said.
But he raised questions. “Why did this video surface a day before the Parliament session was set to begin? If someone had the video, should they not have handed it over to the DGP or the police? Should they have made the video public? Think of the victim’s dignity... I don’t want to get into the politics of this, but if whoever had the video handed it to the police when it happened, then we would have made the arrests on May 5 (the day after the incident took place). The day we came across the video, we used facial recognition software and ran it against the government database and managed to identify all the nine people who are now facing trial,” he said.
He also presented data to show that the violence was ebbing. “ Of the people that have died in the violence, 107 died in May, another 20 died in June, 15 were killed in July, and so far four people have died in August... I am stating these numbers to show that violence is slowly abating and we should not be taking actions that add fuel to these flames,” he said.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh hit back, saying it was “shameful” that Shah questioned the timing of the release of the video. “It’s absolutely shameful that the home minister is questioning the timing of the release of the horrific video from Manipur. By claiming on the floor of the Parliament that the intelligence agencies did not know about the existence of such a video, he’s only accepting his own incompetence...,” Ramesh posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
