PM Modi blames Congress for Manipur ethnic violence

ldquoManipur had become the victim of ethnic clashes during the erstwhile Congress regimerdquo Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday while replying to the Oppositionrsquos noconfidence motion against his government over the ongoing violence in the northeastern state and other issuesThe Opposition staged a walkout when Modi did not speak on Manipur even over an hour after his speech A few minutes later Modi said ldquoHad the Opposition been interested in discussing Manipur we could have had a detailed discussion separatelyrdquoldquoThe violence in Manipur is saddening Crimes against women are unacceptable and the central and state governments are working together to ensure the guilty are punished I want to assure the people of Manipur that we will together find a solution and restore peace in staterdquo Modi saidHe then went on to blame the Congress for the ethnic clashes ldquoRoot cause of problems in the northeast is the Congress and its politics They have murdered the trust of people of the northeastrdquo he addedLater Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted that they walked out of Lok Sabha ldquoafter listening for over 70 minutes to the PMrsquos election sloganeering abuse of INDIA and obstinate refusal to address the reasons behind the noconfidence motion especially Manipurrdquo The notrust motion was defeated by a voice voteIn Bill govt drops CJI from EC selection panelThe Centre on Thursday tabled a bill in Rajya Sabha that seeks to replace the chief justice of india CJI with a cabinet minister in the panel for selection of the chief election commissioner CEC and election commissioners ECs in a move that will allow the government to have more control in the appointments of members of the poll panelThe bill comes months after the Supreme Court in March ruled that a threemember panel headed by the PM and comprising the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and the CJI will select the CEC and ECs till a law is framed by Parliament As per the Bill moved by the Centre instead of CJI a Union minister nominated by the PM will join the panel The Bill was introduced amid an uproar by the Opposition that said the bill was a ldquoblatant attempt at making the EC a total puppet in the hands of the PMrdquoA vacancy will arise in the Election Commission of India ECI ahead of the Lok Sabha polls when EC Anup Chandra Pandey demits office on February 14 on attaining the age of 65 years Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan said that even if the bill is passed in Parliament it would be ldquounconstitutionalrdquo in his view and it was likely to be struck down by the Supreme CourtPrivilege notice against Amit Shah for lsquolyingrsquo in LSThe Congress on Thursday gave a notice in the Lok Sabha against alleged breach of privilege by Home Minister Amit Shah accusing him of lying on Maharashtra farm widow Kalawati Bandurkar Gandhi had visited her house in 2008 after her husband died by suicide following a farm crisis in Vidarbha Shah on Wednesday claimed Modi government got Kalawati a home But the Congress alleged the Modi government was lying and tweeted a video wherein she said Rahul Gandhi had helped her tide over povertyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever