Senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday asserted that the Supreme Court would now be the ‘battleground’ for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) that has been cleared by the Lok Sabha and now awaits passage in the Rajya Sabha.
“CAB is unconstitutional. Parliament passes a Bill that is patently unconstitutional and the battleground shifts to the Supreme Court,” he said in a tweet. “Elected Parliamentarians are abdicating their responsibilities in favour of lawyers and judges.”
Mr. Chidambaram’s comments seem to suggest that the Opposition will not have the numbers in the Upper House to stop the passage of the Bill.
Also read: Editorial | Unequal, unsecular: On Citizenship Amendment Bill
“That is the price we pay for giving a party a brute majority that it uses to trample over the wishes of the States and the People,” he said in another tweet.
Though the Congress has been trying to urge other Opposition parties to vote against the CAB, the government has found the support of parties such as the AIADMK and the Biju Janata Dal to add to its numbers.
Published - December 10, 2019 09:39 am IST
