Congress chief Sonia Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday for announcing the historic peace deal with Naga insurgents without taking the Opposition into confidence. Sonia Gandhi said, "Naga peace accord may be historic but what about consulting the CMs of the states which are directly affected." "Here is another show of the arrogance of this government," she added.

"This Government keeps on saying that everybody has to be taken along and that they will hold consultations with all, will take the views of all Chief Ministers. Then what happened? Their arrogance is now even more clear than before. And it is an insult not only to the chief ministers, but to the people of these states and to the federal structure of our country," she said.

In a historic move, the central government and the NSCN-IM signed the Naga Peace Accord settling an almost 20-year-old peace negotiation process that started in 1997 after the group signed the ceasefire agreement.

The accord was signed following nearly two decades of peace talks. Congress Chief Ministers like Tarun Gogoi of Assam and Nabam Tuki of Arunchal Pradesh had welcomed the accord. While welcoming the Naga peace deal, Gogoi had expressed astonishment on why "clauses of the agreement had been kept in the dark."



Rahul noted that what Congress President said was perhaps the most important issue. "Our voice is being suppressed in Parliament. The Congress President has said that the voice of three states Manipur Assam and Arunachal is being suppressed. It's an insult to the people of these three states that their CMs have not been advised.

"It's an insult to every single citizen in these three states and it's an insult to the people of India the way this government does work," Gandhi said.



The Congress continued its protest for the third day on Thursday over the suspension of 25 of its MPs by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Senior leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi, party vice president Rahul Gandhi, and former prime minister Manmohan Singh held a protest near Mahatma Gandhi's statue at the parliament complex.

The protestors wore black bands on their arms. The Janata Dal-United led by its leaders Sharad Yadav and KC Tyagi also participated in the protest.

The Speaker had on Monday suspended the Congress parliamentarians for five days for "wilfully obstructing the business of the house" and not adhering to her repeated requests to observe the rules in the house.