Opposition rips into PM speech: No mention of Manipur for 90 mins, used House as poll stage

Throughout his speech, the PM attacked the Congress and about Manipur only briefly, Gogoi said. Midway through the PM’s reply, Opposition MPs walked out of Lok Sabha alleging that there was no reference to Manipur in the first 90 minutes of his speech.

Gogoi said the BJP was “hiding its failures” in Manipur and expressed the hope that the INDIA alliance parties would defeat the BJP in the 2024 elections.

“… In these two hours, all he did was to twist the name of our country — India. There is a Congress-phobia inside that we can see because the prime minister spent most of his time blaming the Congress. No doubt, seeing the unity of INDIA parties in front of him shouting INDIA, INDIA, has spooked the prime minister,” Gogoi told reporters after they walked out.

“No matter his speech, we are confident that our parties stand united for a common vision to save and protect the values of our Constitution, to preserve the values of our civilisation and to preserve the integrity, fraternity, liberty and equality, rights and principles that are enshrined in our Constitution. We are confident that the INDIA alliance will win in 2024,” he said.

After the walkout, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said: “We asked the PM to address the nation on Manipur. After one hour and 45 minutes, he had not mentioned the word Manipur. He was making a purely political speech, there were all the old attacks on Congress party and the Opposition, insults, but there were no answers to questions raised by the no-confidence motion.”

“It was a purely political speech. What was new? What did he tell the nation that we did not know? It lacked the gravitas that we associate with PM, and lacked any substantive reference to the motion of no-confidence,” he said.

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DMK MP TR Baalu said the Opposition was expecting to hear from the Prime Minister about the situation in Manipur and other parts of the country where incidents of violence have been reported. “He has given a political speech,” Baalu added. “The intention of the no-confidence motion was… to hear his response on Manipur and Haryana, and other areas where violence is taking place. We intervened many times but he did not respond,” he said.