The BJP on Saturday announced a mass contact programme to apprise people of the details of the Citizenship Amendment Act, (CAA), 2019 , to assure them that it was not against existing citizens, and to bust some of the “myths” around it as protests continued against the law.
Addressing a presser at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav said the contours of the mass contact programme on the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) were finalised in a meeting of party office bearers and spokespersons and presided over by working president J.P. Nadda.
250 press meets
The party would, within the next 10 days, contact more than three crore families, organise a rally in every district of the country and hold over 250 press conferences across the country to inform masses about the new law.
The new law seeks to give citizenship to six minority communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who arrived in India before December 2014 due to religious persecution.
Mr. Yadav said the party will involve beneficiaries of the amended law in its information campaign.
Congress targeted
He accused opposition parties, especially the Congress, of spreading misinformation in a bid to disturb peace across the country during recent protests which have claimed several lives.
Earlier, addressing the meeting, Mr. Nadda said it was matter of happiness that the Modi government had decided to give succour to those fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and seeking a home in India.
“The Congress is talking the language of Pakistan and conveniently forgetting what was promised under the Nehru-Liyaqat pact of 1950,” he is reported to have said. “Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too had, on the floor of the Rajya Sabha in 2003, asked that refugees be protected,” he said.
He added that the Congress and other opposition parties, having been bested at the hustings “were using students to play vote bank politics.”
