Cong slams PM Modi for not visiting flood-hit Sikkim; seeks more aid from Centre

Congress on Tuesday termed the situation in Sikkim as unprecedented and also slammed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving only Rs 44 crore as aid to the state.

Congress said that if Modi can find time to campaign in a Delhi Municipal Corporation election, it would have been ideal if he would have visited the state.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said: “What we are facing in Sikkim, is unprecedented, the damage is unprecedented, the loss in connectivity is unprecedented. Thousands of people have been displaced, many have died, and many are living in relief camps.”

He said that in Chungthang, the people are in severe distress, connectivity towards the border areas of India has been lost.

“This opens up an issue of strategic security. It puts our border security at risk. At such a time, when there are foreign elements across our border, we cannot afford any of our border areas to be vulnerable, to be inaccessible, to the Indian Armed Forces,” Gogoi, who is Deputy Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha said.

He asked the government to step up the aid to Sikkim.

“Rs 44 crore is too small for the scale of devastation in Sikkim. We urge the central government to send a senior Cabinet minister to review the situation. In such a situation, it would have been apt for the Home Minister to visit the state.”

“It would have been ideal for a Prime Minister, who finds time to campaign in a Delhi Municipal Corporation election, it would have been ideal, and it would have been normal to expect from such a Prime Minister, who campaigns in a Municipal Election to visit and survey the state of affairs in Sikkim,” he said taking a swipe at the Prime Minister.

“Unfortunately, the Prime Minister is nowhere to be found. The Home Minister (Amit Shah) is nowhere to be found. Another state in the North-East is facing severe devastation and people are in severe distress, and another state in the North-East is seeing that the Prime Minister is absent,” he said.

He said that our only hope is that like in 2011-2012 when the earthquake hit Sikkim, the entire nation rallied together, the Central government, state government, and ordinary people, we all rallied together to help the people of Sikkim in need.

“Today is the time when we should do it again because it is unprecedented,” the Congress leader said.

Highlighting the plight of the people in the state, Gogoi said that due to the devastation at least 25,000 people have been affected and over 7,600 people have gone homeless.

“About 80 people have died and over 3,000 tourists are still stranded in Sikkim. In the 28 relief camps in the state, about 6,800 people are residing. The National Highway no 10 has been damaged, out of 23 soldiers who went missing, only eight bodies have been retrieved.”

But despite that the Modi government is yet to be found active on the ground,” he said.