On a day the Opposition, led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, knocked on the President’s doors seeking his intervention in the issue of violence in Central universities and urging him to advise the Modi Government to withdraw the “unconstitutional and divisive” citizenship amendment legislation, the ruling dispensation brazened it out with Union Home Minister Amit Shah asserting that there is no question of going back on the CAA’s implementation as “the Government is firm like rock”.
“Non-Muslim refugees will get citizenship, come what may,” the Home Minister stressed. He made the assertions from several platforms during the course of the day.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also challenged the Congress and its allies to re-introduce Article 370 in the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir and scrap the law against instant triple talaq.
The Opposition members sought a judicial inquiry into the police action and Sonia said the BJP Government was shutting down people’s voices and bringing legislations which are not acceptable to them.
Asserting there was no question of going back on CAA’s implementation, Shah accused the Opposition of engaging in a “false” campaign over the legislation.
He said the Modi Government will ensure that non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan get Indian nationality and live in the country with honour.
Accusing Opposition parties of “stoking fear” among Muslims over the amended citizenship law, the BJP described their memorandum to the President as “ironical and farcical”.
Sonia Gandhi said, “Representatives of 12 different political parties met the President to plead with him to intervene in the situation in the North-East, which is now spreading throughout the country including the Capital on Jamia campus, because of the Act. It is a very serious situation. We fear that it may spread even further. We are anguished at the manner in which the police have dealt with peaceful demonstrations across India.”
Leaders of CPI(M), CPI, DMK, SP, TMC, RJD, National Conference, IUML and AIUDF were part of the delegation. A BSP delegation will meet the President separately on Wednesday.
“I think you all have seen the BJP Government. The Modi Government seems to have no compulsion when it comes to shutting down people’s voices and implement a legislation, which do not seem to be acceptable to the people and to us in a democracy,” she said.
Amid the raging protests, Modi accused the “Congress and its friends” of spreading lies over the new citizenship law, and dared them to declare they will accord Indian nationality to all Pakistanis.
The Prime Minister asked students to try and see whether they were not being made accomplices in a “conspiracy” where “urban naxals” and others were using their “shoulders to fire” to serve their own interests. Addressing an election rally in Jharkhand, Modi sought to assuage concerns of Indians apprehensive about getting stripped of their citizenship.
“The Congress is spreading lies, creating an atmosphere of fear for Muslims over the new law. Citizenship (Amendment) Act neither takes away the rights of Indian citizens nor harms them in any manner,” Modi said at the rally. The Prime Minister asked his political opponents to stop “dirty politics” and not to destroy the country’s social fabric.
BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Left had once pushed for Indian citizenship for persecuted minorities from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh but, he added, they have changed their stand to corner the BJP following the Modi Government’s decision to this effect.
On Modi alleging that certain groups with vested interests are trying to create disturbance and helping Pakistan, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said, “We challenge the Prime Minister to have a debate with us. I challenge him for a one-on-one debate where we will highlight who embraced Nawaz Sharif and who released the terrorists and who wanted to be more friendly to Pakistan. It is they who have sympathies with Pakistan and accuse the Opposition (of it). We challenge him for a debate.”
CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury asked why the Prime Minister was “obsessed” with Pakistan after he dared the Congress and “its friends” to declare they would accord Indian nationality to all Pakistanis.