Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacked the Union government over Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, terming it ‘India’s tryst with bigotry and narrow-minded exclusion’. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha around Monday midnight and would now be introduced in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
Vadra’s remarks came after the CAB was passed in Lok Sabha with 311 members favouring it and 80 voting against it.
“Last night at midnight, India’s tryst with bigotry and narrow-minded exclusion was confirmed as the CAB was passed in Lok Sabha. Our forefathers gave their life and blood for our freedom,” she said in a tweet, recalling her great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech on the midnight of August 14-15, 1947, when India rang in its Independence.
“In India’s hard-fought freedom is enshrined the right to equality and the right to freedom of religion,” she tweeted.
“Our constitution, our citizenship, our dreams of a strong and unified India belong to all of us. We will fight against this government’s agenda to systematically destroy our constitution and undo the fundamental premise on which our country was built with all our might,” Priyanka said in another tweet.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu led pary workers and staged a dharna at GPO to protest the introduction of CAB. Terming the bill ‘Sanghi Samvidhan’, Lallu claimed that Congress leaders and workers would fight from Parliament to streets, and not allow the BJP to saffronise Indian Constitution.
The agitating Congress workers later burnt the copy of the bill as a mark of protest. Leaders who participated in the protest included Congress Legislative Party leader Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’, Vinod Mishra, Sanjay Bajpayee, Maroof Khan, Rajesh Shukla, Mukesh Singh Chauhan and three dozen others.
CAB seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, facing religious persecution. The bill was passed in Lok Sabha after a heated debate a little past midnight on Monday.
