National Secretary of the BJP, Ram Madhav, on Friday, swore by the Constitution of India which offers ‘equal rights to all citizens irrespective of faith, caste, creed or colour’.
“India is a secular country, has been one, and will continue to be one for times immeorial. So, citizens of the country have nothing to fear about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA),” he averred.
‘CAA is a humanitarian Act’
Further, “CAA is a humanitarian Act brought about to resolve a long pending issue of providing justice to refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Therefore, to oppose it is most ridiculous,” he said. Mr. Madhav appealed to Muslims not to be “mislead by false propaganda by knowledge proof and intelligent proof Opposition Parties”. He said it was “unfortunate” about talking of Muslims being discriminated when “people of all religions including different strands of Islam” stay here.
The BJP leader was delivering a talk on the CAA at a meeting organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of RSS, at Osmania University’s Tagore auditorium here.
India has never refused refugees and even now Muslims from the neighborhood can become citizens here through marriage, showing proof of residence for 12 years, and so on, Mr. Madhav clarified. “The CAA was meant for past refugees alone with a cut off date of December 2014. After that even Hindus will not be allowed to get citizenship through CAA,” he maintained.
BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav arrives for a talk organised by ABVP at Tagore Auditorium,Osmania university,Hyderabad on Friday.
A past legacy
The BJP leader was at pains to state that the CAA was a legacy of the past including the pacts signed by Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru with Pakistan’s Liaqat Ali Khan as well as Indira Gandhi with Bangladesh’s Sheikh Mujibhur Rehman.
He pointed out that for some reason the then governments did not amend the CAA and did not sign the UN Convention of Refugees Treaty leaving refugees stranded. “The Modi government took the bold resolve to fulfil a decades old demand,” he reasoned.
Opposing without knowing why
Most of those opposing do not know why they are doing so but they were bringing down the prestige of the government and country, Mr. Madhav rued. “It could also be because they are unable to take on Prime Minister Modi politically,” he opined.
ABVP state president Shankar presided over the event.
