Imphal, January 14: Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Rishang Keishing today emphatically said that in his 50 years political career, he has not done anything against the interest of Manipur and reiterated that records are there to prove it.

In a signed statement released to the press today, Keishing said that it was on April 7, 1952 that he was first took oath as a Lok Sabha MP and in all these years he has never done anything inimical to the State�s interest.

Reacting to the statement of RK Dorendro that making Rishang the chief minister would be akin to making Th Muivah the chief minister of Manipur, Rishang sad that it was just a desperate attempt to cover up his (Dorendro) misdeeds.

The ceasefire was not extended during my tenure as chief minister, said Rishang and went on to say that he tried to initiate a dialogue between the Naga underground groups and the Centre in 1997 when Narasimha Rao was the prime minister of India and the then Congress MP Meijinlung Kamson was MoS for home affairs, Kamson is now with the BJP.

�I had personally opposed any move to extend the ceasefire to the soil of Manipur,� iterated Rishang and added with good effect that the Congress has always been opposed to any idea to extend the ceasefire to Manipur.

Communal confrontation reared its ugly head during the time of Dorendro, said Rishang and recalled that Meitei-Pangal clash and Naga-Kuki feud erupted when Dorendro was the chief minister in 1993-1994.The ceasefire was extended when Radhabinod Koijam and RK Dorendro were locked in a bitter power struggle, said Rishang.

�The acute financial crisis and burden of overdraft happened after I stepped down as chief minister,� said Rishang.

The veteran Congress leader appealed to the people not to be taken in by image bashing and verbal abuse.