Home Minister Amit Shah while addressing an event in Lucknow held to gather support for the controversial citizenship amendment act (CAA), said the opposition on Tuesday to prove that the amended citizenship act stripped Indians of citizenship.
He gave a firm message on the ongoing protests against the new citizenship law that the CAA will not be withdrawn. Shah said, “let me say this here and now, the CAA will not be withdrawn, no matter who protest “.
Amit Shah claimed, the opposition is spreading “lies” about the CAA and said that the opposition can’t see the reality because their eyes are covered with the mask of vote bank politics claiming there was no provision in the law to take away anyone’s citizenship.
At the event, Amit Shah specifically named Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav and Communist parties challenging the opposition for a public debate on CAA.
He also said, when the partition took place, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs constituted 30% of the population in (present-day) Bangladesh and 23% in Pakistan, but today it’s just 7% and 3% respectively. Where have these people gone? Those who are protesting against the new citizenship amendment act, I want to ask them this.
The new citizenship amendment act that has been approved by the Indian Parliament on December 11 and notified on January 10 provides citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan provided they have lived in India for a period of six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014.
The CAA has been widely criticized for excluding Muslims leading to protest against the law.