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P Chidambaram calls for mass stir if Supreme Court upholds validity of CAA
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the Centre is trying to shift the basis of citizenship from territory to religion.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said on Thursday that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was an outcome of the “Assam fiasco” where around 1.9 million people were excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and called for a “huge mass movement” if the apex court upholds the validity of CAA.
Speaking at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Chidambaram said: “The CAA was brought to accommodate 1.2 million Hindus out of the 1.9 million people, who could not be included in the final NRC in Assam.”
“The NPR (National Population Register) again was brought in with a mischievous intent since its form is asking the birthplaces of you and your parents. There are so many people in India whose parents were born in Pakistan or Bangladesh. They will try to identify these people and mark them doubtful,” he added.
He said the Centre is trying to shift the basis of citizenship from territory to religion. “We are not opposing the CAA-NRC because we do not support the idea of giving citizenship to the religiously persecuted people in neighbouring countries. We are opposing it because of its exclusive nature. Do we have only three neighbours? What about the Rohingya of Myanmar and Tamils in Sri Lanka?” he said.
The Centre has maintained that the CAA will help non-Muslim migrants from three neighbouring nations become Indian citizens if they fled religious persecution and entered India before 2015. Its critics, however, allege that the law discriminates against Muslims.
