After three days of violent demonstrations against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens in two dozen districts of Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced a damage control exercise on Saturday.
Party leaders with help from Muslim religious leaders would launch an awareness campaign to counter the misinformation campaign by opposition parties and clear the confusion over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, particularly among Muslims.
BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh met a large number of Muslim clerics and leaders of various Muslims outfits and explained that the CAA had nothing to do with citizenship of Indians, including Muslims.
Singh said that a vicious campaign had been launched by vested interests to spread confusion and create uncertainty among people.
He said the CAA was drafted after consultations and it would not impact any Indian citizen irrespective of his/her religion.
The BJP leader told Muslim leaders that the CAA was enacted by the Union government only for facilitating the process of granting citizenship to minority communities like Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Parsi, who were persecuted on religious grounds and forced to migrate to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Singh appealed to Muslims to not be swayed by misleading campaign of opposition parties as they were busy spreading confusion and misleading the community over the citizenship issue. He charged that these parties deprived Muslims of basic necessities and engaged them in flimsy issues during the last 70 years.
Urging Muslims to maintain peace, the BJP state chief said during the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003, former finance minister who later became prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had demanded suitable amendment in the Citizenship Act for granting citizenship to Hindu refugees from Bangladesh.
He said that the same Congress was now speaking in a different tone only for narrow political ends.
After meeting the BJP leader, prominent Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad said that there was no threat to Muslims from the CAA.
The Maulana said that in case somebody had a query or confusion, they must consult a lawyer or expert before protesting against the law.
“Only political parties will reap dividends due to the violence caused by protests against the law and Muslims will be the losers. The parties wants to inflict maximum damage to Muslims so that they get the community’s sympathy and support,” he said.
Maulana Jawwad said that he along with several other clerics would launch an awareness campaign among the community on the new citizenship law.