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In Mayawati’s new pitch over CAA, she also has a word of caution for Muslims
The BSP chief’s advice to the Muslim community mirrors the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s counter-attacks at the Congress-led opposition, accusing them of misleading and inciting people about changes to the citizenship law.
Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati on Tuesday asked the BJP-led national coalition to quickly clear all doubts of the Muslim community over the citizenship law and the proposed National Register of Citizens.
She also had a word of advice for the community. “But with this, people of Muslim community should also be careful that somewhere along the way, are they being exploited politically or are getting crushed between (the government and the Opposition,” she said.
The BSP chief’s advice to the Muslim community mirrors the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s counter-attacks at the Congress-led opposition, accusing them of misleading and inciting people about changes to the citizenship law.
At a Delhi rally over the weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also accused political rivals of stoking violence during protests across the country that have claimed at least 24 lives since Parliament approved the new law on December 11.
Mayawati’s party voted against amendments to the citizenship law in parliament and even sent a delegation to President Ram Nath Kovind to request him to withdraw changes to the citizenship law.
But her party has made a pointed effort to stay out of the same frame as other opposition parties in this endeavour. For instance, the BSP delegation went to the President a day after the Opposition had petitioned Rashtrapati Bhavan. Her party hasn’t joined any of the protests against NRC or CAA in Lucknow or elsewhere.
When Chandrashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army, another dalit organisation that could nibble away at her core constituency, led protests against the law in Delhi, she took a swipe at him for protesting in the national capital rather than home state Delhi. She reasoned that Azad chose Delhi for his arrest because of the assembly elections in early January.
The changes to the citizenship law allow undocumented migrants from six communities to get citizenship if they claim religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh.
This law was projected to be the first step to building a National Register of Citizens that the ruling BJP says would help identify and evict infiltrators. Home Minister Amit Shah had set a 2024 deadline for his government to deliver on this promise.
