IMPHAL, July 28 (NNN): President of National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), Neeraj Kundan on Friday alleged that being a small state, the issue of Manipur is not taken seriously by the incumbent government at the Centre.
The NSUI president was in Imphal on a two-day visit in the state to take ground zero stock of the prevailing unrest.
Talking to reporters in Imphal Hotel before concluding his visit in the state, the NSUI chief saidm “Amit Shahji and Narendra Modiji, may be, they are not bothered because they think Manipur has only two Lok Sabha seats.”
He said that if Manipur happens to be a state having 50, 80 or more Lok sabha seats, they would have taken every step to contain the violence unfolding in the state.
The NSUI president then strongly condemned both the Central and the state governments for being “unable to resolve the crisis” even after nearly three months of violence.
“There is a need to awaken the sleeping Central and state governments to bring an end to the violence so as to return peace and normalcy in the state.
He alleged that since the state has only two seats in the Lok Sabha, the Central leaders paid less interest in dealing with the prevailing crisis.
The NSUI leader also said the Prime Minister broke his silence only after more than 70 days when a disturbing video of two women being paraded naked went viral. “Why did he again choose to maintain silence with no step to bring back peace in the state?” he asked.
The NSUI president further said that he came to the state to take stock of the ground reality of the problems being faced by the student community.
Since his arrival in the state, he had visited relief camps and interacted with the displaced students. During the interactions, the students brought up the problems being faced by them in their study due to the ongoing unrest, he added.
The complaints of the displaced students were mostly related to difficulties in availing study materials and being unable to afford their families who were also staying in the relief camps, he also said.
In short, the prevailing unrest has severely impacted the study of the students, Neeraj said, and drew the attention of the state government to provide adequate study materials to the students in the relief camps.
“The government should identify the problems and grievances of the displaced students and should give special emphasis to ease the problems”, he said.
He assured that after returning to Delhi he will highlight the grievances being faced by the students in Manipur to draw the attention of pertinent authorities to address the same.
The NSUI will also organize a country-wide candle light vigil to highlight the plights of the students displaced by the violence in the state.
