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The BJP on Wednesday accused opposition parties of stoking communal passion over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and asked them to stop spreading “lies” about the new law, as leaders of rival parties escalated their attack on the Modi government over its implementation.
Amid continuing anti-CAA protests in Assam and Kerala, former Union minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad slammed opposition leaders like Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee and maintained that CAA-2019 does not take away citizenship of any Indian or jobs.
The Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) leader has made a very strange statement, Prasad told reporters in reference to Kejriwal’s claim that the BJP government at the Centre can’t provide jobs to Indians but wants to give them to those coming from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
“What kind of nonsense is this to bring people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to India and give the rightful employment of our children to them,” Kejriwal charged at a news conference earlier in the day.
With CAA, the BJP-led government at the Centre has opened the floodgates for the arrival of a large number of poor minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh into India, he said.
The CAA that seeks to grant citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India before December 31, 2014 was rolled out on Monday.
Prasad said Home Minister Amit Shah has made it clear the CAA is about granting citizenship and that no citizen of the country will lose citizenship due to it.
“Why are opposition parties spreading propaganda(on CAA)?” he asked.
“I will ask those stoking communal passion in the name of the CAA that they should stop spreading lies about it.” Chief Minister Banerjee asserted that CAA-2019 is linked with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and that is the reason why she is opposing the new legislation.
The TMC supremo said she doesn’t want detention camps in West Bengal, like those in Assam.
“The CAA is related to NRC, that is why we are opposing it. We don’t want detention camps like those in Assam,” she told reporters in Jalpaiguri.
Banerjee also claimed that the CAA is a “political gimmick” ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala–M K Stalin and Pinarayi Vijayan–have also strongly opposed the CAA.
Union Minister and senior BJP leader Anurag Thakur also lashed out at the opponents of the CAA, saying thousands of Dalit families from the neighbouring countries now living in India were waiting for citizenship.
Speaking at a programme at Delhi BJP office, Thakur said the CAA is a law for providing citizenship and not for taking it away.
After partition of the country, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised that minorities living in the neighbouring countries will be preserved but the Congress in last 75 years did nothing for it, he said.
At his news conference, Prasad asserted that the law is for those minorities who were persecuted in the three neighbouring countries because of their religious faith. These people have been living a tough life in India,he said, and asked if the country is not morally, culturally and constitutionally right in granting them citizenship.
Banerjee is on a slippery ground and it is forcing her to give the issue a communal colour, Prasad claimed.
He also urged the parties in south India, “especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu”, to stop spreading hatred based on falsehood. He claimed that the critics have no reasoned argument against the law.
Political base of all of them is sinking, he said in a swipe at opposition parties.
The former law minister also dismissed the assertion of some states ruled by non-BJP parties that they will not implement the Act, saying it is a central law and is required to be implemented.
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai also lashed out at opposition parties, claiming “there is no humanity left in them”.
Rai, a senior BJP leader, also asserted that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “fulfilled his own promise” with the notification of CAA, the opposition was indulging in “appeasement politics” and acting out of “vote bank concerns”.
The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), the apex body of major student unions of the eight states of the region, burnt copies of the CAA rules across the region and demanded immediate repeal of the law.
Activists of Raijor Dal, Bir Lachit Sena and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) organised a march in Sivasagar in Guwahati, but were stopped by the police, leading to a minor scuffle. The police detained its leaders from the protest site, officials said.
The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee(KPCC) organised a dharna in front of the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, with the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly V D Satheesan alleging that the BJP-led government issued the CAA notification to divide the people along communal lines.
Several leaders of the Congress party, including UDF convenor and senior party leader M M Hassan, CWC member and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, and Attingal MP Adoor Prakash, took part in the dharna.
In his speech, Tharoor said if the Congress comes to power at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls, “we will throw the CAA into the Arabian Sea”.
“This is my word as a member of the Congress party’s manifesto committee,” he said.
A meeting of the Kerala Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Vijayan, decided to pursue legal measures aligned with the state government’s stance against the contentious law.
According to an official statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), the Advocate General has been tasked with initiating legal proceedings in the matter, further to the original suit that is before the Supreme court.
“The state government has already filed an original suit before the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution. As the central government has proceeded with the notification of rules under the CAA, the state is preparing for additional legal action through the Supreme Court,” it said.
The statement also affirmed the government’s position that the Citizenship Amendment Act will not be enforced in Kerala.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the Centre’s decision to notify the CAA rules is a “gimmick” keeping Lok Sabha polls in mind, and the state government will take a decision regarding its implementation in the state after going through it, “CAA is being brought in now keeping the election in mind. Why were they (Centre) keeping quiet all these years? Now they have brought it all of a sudden ahead of elections, because they fear losing (in the polls). That’s the reason they are doing all these gimmicks,” the senior Congress leader told reporters in Udupi.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
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