Criticising the BJP, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said, 'They are the real 'tukde-tukde' gang in this country.'
Published Mar 12, 2024 | 11:31 AM ⚊ Updated Mar 12, 2024 | 2:39 PM
A 2020 protest against the CAA in Maharashtra .(iStock)
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday, 11 March, denounced the central government’s notification on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), calling it a divisive and damaging move with purely communal motives.
“It flies in the face of the core principle that in India, whatever your religion is, whatever your caste is, whatever your language is, whatever your colour is, whatever part of the country you live in, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a citizen of India, you have the same rights as everyone else,” Tharoor told PTI.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) member said he hopes that “some smart lawyer will take this up before the Supreme Court and challenge its constitutionality”.
Reiterating what he had already stated in Parliament against the CAA, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said that this law has violated the fundamental principle of the Constitution.
“The law is fundamentally misconceived, and I believe it is also an insult to the millennial traditions of our civilisation, where we have honestly offered refuge,” Tharoor said.
Quoting Swami Vivekananda’s historical speech in Chicago, Tharoor said the country has the tradition of giving refuge to the persecuted of all nations, and that is our country, and that is our history.
“Here in Kerala, the Jews fled persecution and came to Kerala. The Christians came here, the Muslims came as traders and brought their message. Everyone was welcomed,” Tharoor said.
He said he had inaugurated seven protest functions against the CAA in Kerala. “We will stand in protest against this,” Tharoor said.
He said the BJP was trying to put out a purely communal message by notifying the CAA in the wake of the election.
“Our problem is that the BJP is trying to divide this nation on the basis of religion. They are the real ‘tukde-tukde’ gang in this country,” Tharoor added.
He said citizenship never had anything to do with religion, and removing one particular religion from the selection is a purely communal exercise.
“I really believe that just as someone born in India, irrespective of faith, can be a citizen, so also, if we’re giving asylum to refugees and others from neighbouring countries, it should be religion-neutral; whoever qualifies should get the benefit,” Tharoor added.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara called the move “politically motivated”, keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in mind.
He said this move shows the BJP’s lack of confidence about winning more seats in the polls and coming to power.
“Today, CAA guidelines and norms have been gazetted and published. I feel that it is not proper to comment without seeing its complete details. We have seen in 2019 that it was opposed by many. Despite that if the Central government has come to this decision, it has to be examined and looked into,” Parameshwara said.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said, the Central government led by BJP has made several decisions keeping the elections in mind, and everyone knows and understands that this move is “politically motivated”.
“Somewhere the BJP has a fear. Despite them claiming outside that they will win, it seems they have less confidence about winning more seats and coming to power. So they are making such decisions,” he added.
AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami also has slammed the notification of the CAA rules, saying the Union government has made a “historic blunder” with its implementation and charged the ruling BJP at the Centre with doing so for political mileage.
He said the “AIADMK vehemently condemns this move which is aimed at dividing people ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to derive political mileage”, even though it has not implemented for the past five years.
“The Central government has committed a historic blunder with this. The AIADMK will never allow any attempt to implement it against indigenous people–the Muslims and Sri Lankan Tamils. AIADMK will join the people of the country to democratically oppose it,” the State Leader of Opposition said in a late night X post on Monday.
The Centre on Monday announced the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, a move that comes four years after the contentious law was passed and paves the way for citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The rules were notified days ahead of the expected announcement of the Lok Sabha elections. With this, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians —from the three countries.
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