“You can’t make a law based on religion”: Asaduddin Owaisi slams BJP

 

Hyderabad: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and said that a law cannot be formulated in the country on the basis of religion.

“This is not a matter restricted to political parties. This is a matter for the whole nation. Do you want to make 17 crore Muslims stateless? This is against the fundamentals of the Constitution. This won’t pass even the reasonable test,” Owasi said while addressing a press conference.

On Monday evening, the Union Home Ministry notified rules for implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), days ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections schedule.

AIMIM chief further said that people should not view CAA in isolation as it is just a prelude towards the BJP-led Centre carrying out the exercise of the National Population Register and National Register of Citizens across the nation.

“Don’t look at CAA in isolation. Always look at it with NPR NRC. Once all these exercises are implemented then Muslims, Dalits, tribes and poor people will suffer. The people of Hyderabad will vote against CAA. I am not polarising the situation it is them who have thought of bringing this right before elections,” Owaisi said.

Asserting that with this act “Centre is trying to promote religious discrimination”, Owaisi cited the example NRC exercise which was carried out in Assam.

“In Assam, Supreme Court-monitored NRC was carried out where 19 lakh people were declared doubters by the administration. Out of these 10 to 12 lakh are Hindus. Now with the implementation of CAA, they will be getting citizenship. What about 1 to 1.5 lakh Muslims who were declared doubters? As per CAA, they won’t get citizenship. This is sheer injustice,” he said.

Citizenship (Amendment) Act aims to provide Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants – including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians – who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.