Rahul Gandhi on Monday alleged that “vested interest” was preventing Union home minister Amit Shah from bringing peace to strife-torn Manipur.

Addressing the media in Ranchi on the last day of campaigning for the second phase of the Jharkhand Assembly elections on November 20, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha also acknowledged that the UPA had committed a mistake by not implementing the caste census in 2011.

Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah over the continued violence in Manipur, the Congress leader said: “The entire country is watching what is happening in Manipur, which has been burning for one-and-a-half years, but the Prime Minister did not visit the state even once. I went there and saw the situation and urged the government to control the violence. The home minister should have done his work but he is not taking interest... some vested interest is at play.”

Rahul did not elaborate on what he meant by “vested interest”.

“Peace should be restored there at the earliest. I have told the state government that we will extend full support to bring normalcy to the region. But the BJP spreads a policy of hatred, which leads to such fires. The Congress can extinguish such fires as we talk about love and brotherhood,” Rahul said.

Rahul acknowledged that not implementing the caste census during the UPA-II regime was a mistake.

“The UPA and the Congress came out with the idea of a caste census (in 2011). I consider it a mistake that we did not implement it then. We have a government in Telangana and Karnataka. We are doing a detailed exercise, a public exercise where we are meeting different stakeholders and preparing the questions for the caste census.

“We have a very clear vision for the caste census. I guarantee you that when we implement the caste census, it will be a huge step in the transformation and development of this country. The BJP has no idea how to do this even if they want to,” he said.

On Modi’s slogan of “ek hai to safe hai”, Rahul said: “I will explain the real meaning of the BJP slogan. It is if Modi, Shah and Ambani are ‘ek’ (united), then they are ‘safe’.”