Hitting out at the BJP-led Central Government over people’s outrage on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) Bill, the senior Congress leader Rajeev Shukla on Sunday said that CAA is against the poor people.
“There has been a widespread resentment against the recent actions of the BJP government amongst the people across the country, especially amongst youth, and calls for respecting the sanctity of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Congress party is against both NRC and CAA,” he said, adding that the Congress party will carry out peaceful protest across the country if the BJP Government did not hear the people’s voice and make clear its stand on NRC.
Shukla, addressing the media persons at Chandigarh Press Club, said that CAA and NRC have created mistrust among the people. “BJP leaders in Assam too are protesting over NRC. There is confusion about NRC and CAA among the people across the country. Law is already there to deport any illegal persons.
There is no need to make another law. So far, only 1000 Bangladeshis were deported by the BJP-led Government in five years. Nobody stopped deportation of illegal Bangladeshis,” he said.
“Our Constitution does not allow targeting any particular religion by passing a Bill in both the Houses of Parliament. We had a law to give citizenship to any people.
But BJP-led government has passed the Bill to secure political mileage,” he said.
Shukla said that CAA and NRC have also triggered widespread protests in northeastern states with a large section of people and organizations opposing it.
Not only the parities, large number of academicians, professors, students of various institutes like IIT, IIM and universities across the country are protesting against the CAA, he said, adding that Government need to make clarity over this issue.
He said that the Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said in the Parliament that they will bring NRC Bill in the Parliament soon. “But before introducing it in the Parliament, the Central Government should make clear what documents
would be needed for a person to live in India,” he said.
Congress leader alleged that to divert the people’s attention from real issues like economic slowdown, employment, job loss, farmers’ distress, traders’ anger after implementation of GST and demonetization among others, the Centre has brought these issues to the front.