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CAA an insult to Savarkar, says Uddhav Thackeray
The Shiv Sena voted in favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday but walked out before the bill was put to vote in the Rajya Sabha two days later.
Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday accused his former ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of “insulting” Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar by pushing the amended citizenship act.
Addressing a press conference on the eve of the winter session of the state legislature, the Shiv Sena chief said: “Savarkar had demanded bringing land from the Sindhu river to Kanyakumari under one country. Instead of doing that, the BJP-led Central government is simply accepting persecuted minorities into India by defying Savarkar, which is an insult to him... The CAA [Citizenship (Amendment) Act] is against the views of Savarkar”
The Shiv Sena voted in favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday but walked out before the bill was put to vote in the Rajya Sabha two days later.
Stating that their queries on the new legislation remain unanswered, Thackeray said: “We are checking the legality of the new law. Some people have challenged the CAA in the Supreme Court. We are waiting to find out whether the new act fits the framework of the Constitution or not. Our queries on the new law still remain unanswered.”
Thackeray said the BJP-led central government has created an “atmosphere of fear” in the country in the name of persecuted minorities and has put real issues aside. “If the minorities were being persecuted in neighbouring countries, the central government should have questioned those countries why the so-called atrocities were being committed against them,” he said.
