Rahul Gandhi on Thursday sought to answer a bewildering question hanging over the republic like a miasma of callousness: Why did Narendra Modi neither go to Manipur nor speak a word for so many weeks on the carnage there?

"Narendra Modi knows it is their ideology that has set Manipur on fire.... You have seen what all happened in Manipur and may be shocked that Modi didn’t utter a word. You all must have presumed the Prime Minister of the country will, after all, say something when one state of the country is burning. Some of you would have thought he would at least fly to Imphal and talk to people there. Any other Prime Minister… a Congress Prime Minister would have gone and stationed himself there.

"But you may be wondering why Modi neither went there nor spoke a word. Because Modi is the Prime Minister of a select few; he is the Prime Minister of the RSS. He has no concern for Manipur,” Rahul said.

“Woh sirf satta chahte hain aur satta ke liye woh kuchh bhi kar denge (They only want power and can do anything for power),” the Congress leader said while addressing the Behtar Bharat Ki Buniyad programme of the Youth Congress in Bangalore. Rahul addressed the event through videoconference as he is at an ayurveda centre in Kerala.

Explaining the ideological battle the country was witnessing, Rahul said: “They will set Manipur and the rest of the country on fire. Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh… they will create trouble anywhere in the country. They are interested only in power, nothing else. The pain and sufferings of the people make no difference to them. Their sole quest is power. And that explains the nature of the battle.”

Arguing that every Congress worker felt pain and anguish over the horrors of Manipur, Rahul said: “Narendra Modi knows it is their ideology that has set Manipur on fire. But the pain and agony of the people, the injuries inflicted upon the women make no difference to him. I can guarantee this, Modi can’t feel their pain. The same tragedy has filled each one of you sitting in the conference with pain. The RSS-BJP people can’t feel the pain of Manipur.”

Modi has so far chosen to ignore the demands for issuing an appeal for peace or speaking on Manipur in Parliament, even refusing to meet delegations of Opposition leaders as well as BJP MLAs from the strife-torn state. Only when the video of two women being paraded naked became public did he break his silence briefly -- on the 79th day since clashes broke out in Manipur on May 3.

Modi has got engrossed in election campaign, addressing rallies in different parts of the country after returning from his foreign tour.

Against this backdrop, Rahul, who had so far remained silent despite visiting relief camps in Manipur to understand the plight of the distressed people, said on Thursday: “Congress workers feel the pain when somebody gets hurt either in Manipur or Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir or Uttar Pradesh. Anybody harmed — Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Tamil, Bengali — anybody in the country, you will feel sad. Your mood will be spoiled. But they are not cut out that way. RSS-BJP leaders don’t feel the pain of ordinary Indians because dividing people is their politics. They have been doing it for long. The fight for you is absolutely clear.”

Exhorting Congress workers to fight the politics of hate everywhere, Rahul wondered how the Prime Minister had now started abusing India. “This is amusing. The Opposition alliance chose a beautiful name — INDIA. That was our heart’s voice. But as soon as we decided on INDIA, Modi started abusing INDIA. He didn’t think before abusing the sacred Hindustan. Such arrogance, such ego.”

He went on: “The Congress ideology is rooted in constitutionalism; it takes everybody along, it fights the unequal system. The RSS-BJP wants only a select few to run the country; they should control all the resources and the institutions, be it the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the army, the Election Commission, schools, colleges.... The RSS wants everything under their control. We want institutions to work for everybody, give protection to everybody, every caste, every religion. We want everybody empowered, we want unity and harmony, which is the spirit of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.”