Trinamool parliamentary team’s Manipur visit deferred to next week

Imphal, July 15 (IANS) The proposed Manipur visit of a 5-member Trinamool Congress parliamentary team has been deferred to July 19-20, as the BJP state government asked them not to visit the trouble-torn state now, citing law and order problems, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev said on Friday.

Dev, who is also one of the members of the Trinamool delegation, said that they have decided to visit the ethnic violence-hit state on July 19-20.

“We have to go to the crisis-ridden state to listen to the hapless affected people and to see the ground situation in the state,” Dev told IANS.

She said that what is the prevailing situation in Manipur is easily understandable as when the BJP government can fail to provide security to five MPs, how they would secure the lives and properties of the people.

The Trinamool announced it was sending a five-member delegation led by its Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien to trouble-torn Manipur on Friday to take stock of the situation in the northeastern state, which has been under the grip of violent ethnic clashes between non-tribal Meitei and tribal Kuki communities for over 70 days now.

Dev said the team, during the two-day visit, will try to talk to a cross-section of people belonging to different communities, besides those housed in the relief camps. “After learning the ground situation and obtaining the views and reactions of the affected people, we will raise the issue in the forthcoming session of the Parliament,” she said.

Other members of the Trinamool delegation include the party's Rajya Sabha member Dola Sen, and Lok Sabha members Kalyan Banerjee and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.

Earlier, the Congress and the Left parties’ delegations had visited Manipur. Accompanied by Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal and in-charge of several northeastern states, Ajoy Kumar, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Manipur on June 29-30. The delegation visited several districts and talked to the people belonging to different communities.

The ethnic violence in Manipur, which broke out after a tribal organisation held a rally on May 3 opposing the recognition of the Meitei community as Scheduled Tribe, so far has claimed over 150 lives and injured more than 600 people. In view of the ethnic strife in Manipur, approximately 50,650 men, women and children belonging to different communities have been displaced and are now sheltered in 350 camps set up in schools, government buildings and auditoriums.

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