“The BJP is trying to consolidate the largest Hindu communal vote bank,” CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said.
“They (the BJP) are the ones who are playing vote-bank politics, and they accuse us (the opposition parties) of indulging in it,” Mr. Yechury said on Saturday.
Mr. Yechury was addressing a public meeting here to explain what he called the ill-effects of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC), and National Population Register (NPR).
Addressing a huge gathering, Mr. Yechury said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi lied to the people of the country about NRC.
“The Central government told Parliament nine times that NRC would be taken up across the country. The President also said it once,” Mr. Yechury claimed.
‘NPR queries’
“In 2014, when I was in Parliament, the Ministry of Home Affairs, responding to a query, said that NPR would be taken up,” the CPI(M) leader said.
The Act pertaining to NPR had been brought in by the BJP government led by former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, he said.
“But the earlier iteration had only 15 questions. Now, the government has added six more, increasing the total number of questions to 21,” he said.
“Where and when was your father born and where and when was your mother born are some of the questions in the new NPR exercise,” Mr. Yechury said.
“The CAA, the NPR and the NRC are aimed at driving out Muslims from the country,” Mr. Yechury asserted.
Detention centres
Referring to the detention centres, Mr. Yechury said that what Mr. Modi said was a “blatant lie.”
“There are about six detention centres in Assam, and more are being constructed across the country,” he claimed, and added that many people had died in such centres.
Referring to the protests being witnessed across the country, Mr. Yechury said that people were standing against the forces that were attacking the Constitution.
“People who are protesting are patriots. It is a fight between the patriots and Hindu nationalists,” he observed.
CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna and APCC vice-president Tulasi Reddy were present. The meeting was presided over by CITU State secretary M.A. Gafoor.
