Opposition parties should come to the Parliament for an open-minded debate with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the situation in Manipur, if they really want to find an early and amicable solution, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.
During an informal chat with reporters after laying the foundation stone for a museum in Adichanallur on Saturday, Ms. Sitharaman said the functioning of the Parliament had been stalled over the Manipur issue. Even though Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, who had met with the displaced population in the relief camps of Manipur, was ready to give a statement in the Parliament, the Opposition was not prepared for an open debate, she claimed.
The Minister recalled that the normal life in Manipur was totally paralysed due to a State-wide blockade in 2013, and there was no supply of even medicines and cooking gas then. “However, the United Progressive Alliance government’s Home Minister did not visit the troubled State then. Even though Mr. Amit Shah, after visiting Manipur, is ready to discuss this issue with the Opposition in Parliament, they have demanded the Prime Minister’s visit Manipur. I don’t want to politicise this issue. Since the Opposition wants to politicise this agonizing problem, I have had to recall the traumatizing incidents of the past,” the Finance Minister said.
Ms. Sitharaman asked the Opposition parties to explain in Parliament, what they had seen in Manipur instead of explaining it to the media. “If you want to get a proper reply for your questions on Manipur and identify amicable solutions, come to Parliament and narrate what you saw there,” she said.
