Terming the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as unconstitutional , former Union minister and a strong critic of the Bharatiya Janata Party government, Yashwant Sinha, on Monday said the law was brought to divide society on religious lines.
“The only motive of this law is to divide society on communal lines and trigger hatred against each other in the country,” he said while demanding immediate withdrawal of this “black law”.
Addressing a press conference along with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha at SP state headquarters here, Sinha said the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the CAA would not be withdrawn at any cost was itself anti-democratic.
“Shah’s statement that the CAA would not be withdrawn even after protests, indicated that the government is working against the citizens. The government already had the power to give citizenship then what was the reason for bringing this new law, no one can understand,” Sinha said, claiming that by bringing such an “anti-constitutional” law, the government was trying to divert the attention of the people from economic slowdown and unemployment.
He said when the rules of the new CAA had not been framed yet, how would it be implemented. “The law says that the minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, if harassed on the basis of religion, can apply for the Indian citizenship. But how these people will prove that they are harassed and the law does not say anything about it,” Sinha said.
He said the present BJP government at the Centre was taking unethical and illegal decisions just to benefit a handful of industrialists.
“While Air India would be given to some industrialists, on the other hand, Rs 1,45,000 crore has been taken from the RBI for these industrial houses,” he alleged.
“The economic condition of the country is grim and the agriculture sector is most hit leading to suicides by farmers,” he added.
Sinha is in Lucknow along with his Gandhi Shanti Yatra, which has come to Uttar Pradesh after covering Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and other states. The yatra will end at Rajghat on January 30. It commenced on January 9 this year from Gateway of India in Mumbai, where Mahatma Gandhi landed after coming to the country from South Africa.
Sinha also targeted some governors in the non-BJP state. “These governors are acting like BJP cadre and are adopting unconstitutional ways to create hurdle for the democratically elected governments,” he said.
Meanwhile, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said that the BJP government was not talking of demonetisation as it had failed on it.
“We are opposing the CAA, the NRC and the NPR and will not accept them at any cost,” he reiterated, saying that the government had failed in demonetisation and it would again meet the same fate on CAA and NRC also.