Parties opposing Act will decide strategy together, says Pawar

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said all parties opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) had come together to meet the president

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said all parties opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) had come together to meet the president and any course of action against this law will be taken together.

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He also said that the law was being opposed by not just minorities as the BJP-led government would like to believe, but from all communities across the country. “All parties opposing the law met the President. We will also come together to decide the course of action, but this will take some time,” said Pawar. “The discontent is not only among minorities, all communities are opposing this law.” He was speaking to reporters in an informal chat in Nagpur, in the backdrop of the winter session of the state legislature. Pawar is in Nagpur since Tuesday evening to meet party legislators. He is also expected to meet chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday.

While the NCP could not be a part of the delegation on Tuesday due to prior commitments, Pawar said that his party was part of the anti-CAA bloc.

The NCP chief said that while the ruling BJP government had expected that the North-East would welcome the citizenship law, the most violent protests were seen from this entire region. He also indicated that these student protests would create a momentum that could lead to an anti-BJP front. “The Home minister says only 22 universities are protesting. This is not a small number,” said Pawar, referring to Shah’s recent remarks that there were 224 universities, of which only 22 were protesting so far. Pawar indicated that while CAA was a central law, it would have to be implemented by the state governments and apparatus, which would be “non co-operative”.

On a lighter note, while reacting to Thackeray’s statement that compared violence in Jamia Millia University over the CAA protests to Jalianwalla Bagh massacre, Pawar said he was now sure that the government in Maharashtra would complete its full tenure. “Our government is now on track. Now, I am sure we will complete our full term,” he said, in a lighter vein.

Senior NCP leader Praful Patel said both CAA and National Register for Citizens were linked despite government’s insistence that they were two different laws. He also put a question mark on the implementation of CAA and NRC. “If you don’t implement NRC, how will the government identify illegal or persecuted migrants? How many detention centres will you build to accommodate so many illegal migrants? And what will they do there? These issues have also been raised in Parliament,” said Patel.