Minutes after the Punjab Vidhan Sabha passed a resolution against the BJP-led Central Government’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act on Friday, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh declared that the border State will join Kerala in challenging the newly-amended law in the apex court.
Describing the controversial legislation as ‘inherently discriminatory’ and a negation of the very secular fabric on which the Constitution of India is based, the Punjab Assembly adopted, by voice vote, a hard-hitting resolution seeking immediate repeal of the unconstitutional Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA), which the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh compared with the ethnic and religious cleansing of Hitler’s Germany.
Clearly, no lessons had been learnt from history, said a visibly anguished Chief Minister during the discussion on the resolution, which also urged the Centre to put on hold the work on the National Population Register (NPR), till forms or documents associated with it are amended suitably, in order to allay apprehensions that it is a prelude to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and designed to deprive a section of persons from citizenship of India and implement CAA.
“Like Kerala, the Government will approach the Supreme Court on the issue,” said Capt Amarinder while talking with the media after the conclusion of the two-day special Assembly session.
He said that the Centre would have to make the necessary amendments to CAA if it had to be implemented in Punjab and other States opposing the legislation.