New Delhi: The sensitive border state of Manipur completed one year of violence on Friday, May 3. During this period, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not paid even a single visit to the crisis-ridden state but has had the time to make 162 official and non-official visits to various other states in the country.
PM Modi has also made 14 official visits abroad during this period when Manipur has been burning, leading to deaths of more than 230 persons and leaving more than 60,000 people homeless. The state is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the chief minister N Biren Singh has continued in his post, with no action being taken against him or any other minister.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The opposition parties have questioned PM Modi’s absence from Manipur. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited the state last year when it was engulfed by violence and started his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra this year from Manipur as well.
Data collated by BBC Hindi from the PMO’s website shows that between May 2023 and April 2024, PM Modi has paid maximum visits to Rajasthan – two dozen – during this period. He also visited Madhya Pradesh 22 times. The two states had gone to polls to elect the legislative assemblies last November, and PM Modi had campaigned extensively for the BJP there.
When the violence began in Manipur, PM Modi was busy campaigning for assembly elections in Karnataka. As per the BBC data, he visited Karnataka eight times in the last one year. He also visited his home state of Gujarat 10 times and Uttar Pradesh, which send the maximum MPs to the Lok Sabha, 17 times during this period.
In February-March this year, PM Modi visited the states of Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast but did not visit Manipur. He has made three visits to Assam and one each to Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. According to official records, PM Modi visited the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh on March 9 for the ‘Developed India, Developed North-East’ programme.
During the assembly election held for five states last November, PM Modi went to all other states but did not go to Mizoram, a state adjacent to Manipur which hosts a large number of people of Kuki-Zo community displaced by Manipur’s violence.
Apart from domestic visits, PM Modi has also made 14 international trips since May 2023. This includes a visit to inaugurate a Hindu temple in the UAE.