Addressing the BJP parliamentary party meet ahead of the debate in Rajya Sabha over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that some Opposition parties were speaking the same language as Pakistan, “including the full stop and comma”.
Likening the bill to the government’s decision to nullify Article 370, Modi said it will provide permanent relief to minorities of neighbouring countries who arrived in India fleeing religious persecution.
Without taking any particular name, Modi asked the MPs to expose the opposition parties on the issue in the Rajya Sabha today.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi also quoted Modi as saying: “CAB will be a law written in golden letters” and they were confident of passing it with a simple majority. “Persecuted minorities will not only get citizenship but also have permanent residency.”
While Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan had gone on a deranged rant, opposing the passage of CAB in Lok Sabha, invoking ‘bilateral agreements’, various Opposition parties, including Congress, Trinamool Congress, NCP, DMK had also protested against the bill.
The CAB seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014, after facing religious persecution there. The Bill is being tabled today in the Rajya Sabha by HM Amit Shah.
The historic bill swept through the Lok Sabha, on December 9, Monday, with 311 MPs of Lok Sabha voting in favour of it, while 80, voting against it in the division of votes, despite the brouhaha created by the Opposition and widespread protests in the Northeast.
The Opposition parties have called the legislation discriminatory and in violation of the principles of equality and secularism.
On Wednesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the bill was an attempt to “ethnically cleanse the Northeast”. “The CAB is an attempt by Modi-Shah Govt to ethnically cleanse the North East. It is a criminal attack on the North East, their way of life and the idea of India. I stand in solidarity with the people of the North East and am at their service.”
Similarly, AIMIM chief, Asududdin Owaisi went a step ahead and compared CAB to Nuremberg race laws and Amit Shah to Hitler. After spewing venom against Amit Shah, Owaisi tore copy of CAB in Lok Sabha.
Likewise, the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday gave a clarion call to oppose NRC and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and said not a single citizen of the country will be allowed to turn into a refugee. Giving assurances that NRC and CAB will be never allowed in Bengal as long as the TMC is in power, Mamata Banerjee said NRC and CAB are both two sides of a coin.
