No-confidence motion: Flying kiss, Manipur crisis, Sansad TV blackout dominated discussion in Parliament

New Delhi: Passionately appealing for peace in Manipur, Union Home Minister Amit Shah urged warring Kuki and Meitei communities to hold talks with the Centre to resolve the issue that has triggered ethnic violence.

Shah was speaking during the no-confidence motion moved by the Opposition bloc `INDIA’ on August 9. The motion was moved by Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi who led the debate. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to speak in the Parliament on Thursday and the voting will be taken up after that.

Shah stressed that there had never been a problem in Manipur in their six years of rule. There has been migration from Myanmar to Manipur and the Home Ministry is taking the required precautions of listing these people in the ‘negative voters’ list.

“Thumb impression and eye impressions are being taken of these people who are coming from Myanmar. The Home Ministry is doing its work,” stressed Amit Shah.

“There was a feeling of insecurity among the Meitei community. There have been a spurt of incidents as people are coming from the other side of the border and that is leading to disturbances. The High Court order of Manipur ended up making the situation volatile which led to the clashes.”

In his two-hour-long speech, Shah gave a background of the situation from the past to the present and stated that all attempts were being made to control the situation.

He said 152 people were killed, 14,898 people arrested and 1,106 FIRs registered since violence erupted on May 3.

Do not politicize the situation

Taking a dig at the Opposition, he asked them not to ‘politicize’ the situation in Manipur. 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, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the North Eastern States 50 times in the last nine years.”

Slamming the Opposition

The purpose of the no-confidence motion is only to spread confusion. “They are neither farmer-friendly nor poor-friendly nor backward-friendly. They are not worried about anyone except their family. After scams and scams worth lakhs of crores the name certainly has to be changed. Opposition might not have confidence in Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the people of India do. NDA has always given stable governance to the country and these people have only given instability,” he said.

Home Minister’s speech was aimed to counter Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegation BJP has "harmed Bharat Mata" in the state.

This drew a fiery response from the BJP treasury benches and their leaders.

Flying kiss allegation

Smriti Irani along with other BJP women members of Parliament complained to the speaker that Rahul Gandhi gave a flying kiss in the Parliament.

This attention diversion tactic did not work as many independent video editors zoomed into the Sansad TV channel to verify the truth.

Visual politics

Sansad TV is coming under scathing attack from the people watching the Parliament proceedings as it has been noted that when the Opposition leaders are talking it is only showing the Speaker Om Birla.

When the NDA leaders are talking, cameras are focused on them. This makes it convenient for the ruling government to be shown in the visuals while the Opposition is blacked out.