Leading a massive agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Kancheepuram on Tuesday, DMK president M. K. Stalin demanded an explanation from the Centre for excluding Muslims and Sri Lankan Tamils from the citizenship legislation. The DMK, which organised similar agitations across Tamil Nadu headed by local leaders, also convened a meeting of its allies in Chennai on Wednesday to discuss the next course of action on the CAA.
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Mr. Stalin said that the DMK would be inclined to support the CAA if the Centre expanded its ambit to include the Muslims and the Sri Lankan ethnic Tamils. “The Indian Constitution is secular in nature and the government cannot enact any law that will discriminate against people on the basis of religion. By excluding the Sri Lankan Tamils, the BJP has proved that it is not only against the Muslims, but also the Sri Lankan Tamils,” he charged.
Mr. Stalin said that if Hindus from neighbouring countries were eligible for citizenship why should not the provision be extended to the Sri Lankan Tamils. “Is the government not considering the Sri Lankan Tamils as Hindus,” he questioned.
Mr. Stalin also described as “false” the claim of Home Minister Amit Shah that so far 4.61 lakh Sri Lankan Tamils were granted Indian citizenship in the first phase and another 75,000 were given citizenship subsequently. “Only the Indian origin Tamils who went to work in Sri Lanka were given the citizenship. It was given by former Prime Ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi after they were denied citizenship by the Sri Lankan government. Mr. Amit Shah cannot claim any credit for the gesture,” he said.
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Mr. Stalin alleged that the agenda of the BJP government was to subject the Muslims to repression. The government, he said, was not interested in fulfilling its electoral promises such as increasing the revenue of the farmers and creating 2 crore jobs. “India is a country of many faiths and languages. They are living in amity for the last 100 years. The BJP is poisoning the cordial atmosphere,” he alleged.
The DMK leader also assailed the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu accusing it of helping the BJP pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha where it had lacked a majority.