BJP Vice President for West Bengal Chandra Kumar Bose on Tuesday demanded transparency in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 saying if it was not related to any religion, then Muslims should also be included.
Hours after a massive march on the streets of Kolkata in support of the controversial citizenship law led by BJP working president JP Nadda, one of the party’s top leaders in West Bengal, Bose, who is also a grand-nephew of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, tweeted: “If CAA, 2019 is not related to any religion why are we stating – Hindu, Sikh, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis and Jains only! Why not include Muslims as well? Let’s be transparent.”
In a series of tweets, he said that India is a nation open to all religions and communities while asking the BJP government to not compare India with aby other nation.
On BJP’s stand that Muslims are not being persecuted in their home countries, he said if that is the case, “they would not come, so there’s no harm in including them.”
However, he added, “this is not entirely true – what about Baloch who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan? What about Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan?”
Bose said the party which would follow the inclusive ideology of Subhas Chandra Bose representing all communities and work for the upliftment of all strata of the society would win Bengal in the 2021 Assembly elections. “The rest would be irrelevant.”
As his tweets raised questions, Bose clarified that he believed the citizenship law was “fine in principle” but needed minor modifications for the entire nation to accept the law.
Speaking to news agency ANI, he appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to give a clarification that the amended Act is meant for minorities who are persecuted in their home states, and it is not based on any religion. Including Muslims, would probably solve the ongoing crisis in the country.
Thousands of party workers raised incessant slogans, many of them mocking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the BJP on Monday virtually painted parts of central and North Kolkata saffron by taking out a massive rally backing the new CAA citizenship law.
Accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of trying to “create” confusion in the country about CAA, Nadda alleged she always gives precedence to party interest over national interest.