If PM wants, fire in Manipur can be doused in two days: Rahul

Jaipur: If Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants, the fire in Manipur can be doused in two or three days by the Army but he wants to keep it raging, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told a party rally in Rajasthan on Wednesday.

Rahul Gandhi alleged that the ideology of the BJP has set Manipur on fire and added, “It has been three months, it seems that Manipur is not a part of India, it is not a state at all.... People are being killed, children are being killed, women are being raped.” If the PM wants to douse the fire, he can get it done by the Indian Army in two or three days, but he wants to keep the fire burning, he alleged.

He also referred to his speech in the Lok Sabha earlier in the day and reiterated his allegation that the politics of the BJP has “murdered Bharat Mata” in Manipur.

The rally in Mangarh Dham in Rajasthan’s Banswara district, organised on the occasion of World Tribal Day, marked the beginning of the Congress campaign for the Assembly polls in Rajasthan later this year.

Gandhi criticised the BJP for calling tribal people “Vanvasi” instead of Adivasi, saying that it’s an insult to them. The country’s land used to belong to Adivasis and they were its original owners, he said, adding the BJP coined a new word, “Vanvasi”, which means the ones who live in the forest.

“We call you Adivasi, this country is yours.... They (BJP) say you are not Adivasi, you were not the first inhabitants of India, they say you are Vanvasi, which means you are not the original owners of this country and you live in the jungle. This is an insult to you. This is an insult to Bharat Mata,” he told the gathering of largely tribal people.

“You are not Vanvasi, you are Adivasi. BJP and RSS want you to stay in the forest only...(they want that) your children should not become engineers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen. They want...to take away your rights and land,” he said. He said the BJP calls tribal people “Vanvasi, snatches their jungles and gives them to Adani”.

He recalled that his grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi had told him in his childhood that the land of the country used to belong to the tribal people. He said that Congress wants the tribals to get their rights, their dreams to be fulfilled.