Amid ongoing protests, both in favour and against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress on Monday traded barbs and accused each other of misleading the public on the issue.
From BJP, the party national executive member Satya Pal Jain said the Act aimed at providing citizenship to those who had been persecuted on religious lines in neighbouring countries as was promised by Mahatma Gandhi and Pt J L Nehru.
“BJP led NDA government has made two amendments in 1955 Citizenship Act for persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Parsi and Jain communities, residing in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
As per amendments, any person of these communities wouldn’t be considered illegal immigrants if they come to India after facing persecution in neighbouring countries.
Besides, the time period for granting them citizenship has been reduced to 5 years from earlier 11 years,” he said, adding everything except these is false propaganda of Congress and other opposition parties.
He said in India, all minorities were safe and they wouldn’t lose their citizenship or have to queue up in long lines to prove their Indian citizenship under CAA and such rumours were being spread by Congress to gain political mileage.
“The simple amendments are being projected as anti-Muslims or against secular ethos of the country which should be condemned by one and all as they are flaring communal sentiments in the country,” he said.
Replying to a query on Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee’s refusing to implement CAA in their states, he said such statements shows their ignorance on Indian Constitution and existing laws.
“Singh and Banerjee’s statements are against federal structure and points towards a dangerous trend in our country as they are no one to implement or stop implementation of the Act in their states.
All the state governments are bound by central acts to implement CAA and it is applicable to all states whether the CMs like it or not,” he added.
He also accused the Congress party of mixing up the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register with CAA and said it was being done to flare communal sentiments to secure votes of minority community in future.
From Congress, All India Congress Committee spokesperson Pawan Khera accused BJP of telling lies on CAA and said the contradicting statements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had further worsened the situation.
“If Indian government wanted to grant citizenship to anyone who is persecuted on religious lines then existing laws were enough.
But Shah and BJP wanted to divide country on religious lines which is the reason that they mentioned religions in the CAA and wanted to impose their whims and fancies on masses,” he added.
He said CAA further needs to be seen with NRC which would further segregate masses and people would be harassed to show documents related to parents and ancestors.
“The worse affected will be tribals, poor and Dalits as they don’t keep such documents or sometimes they don’t keep such records,” he said.
Khera added that they don’t have any opposition to Modi government granting citizenship to persecuted persons but the party was against religious segregation of minority community in CAA.
He added that if Congress comes to power, they would amend the Act and remove such discriminatory language which was against our constitution.