‘We want Bharat as the country of Gandhi, Ambedkar’

A lot of difference between NPR of 2020 and that of 2010, says Asaduddin

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi addressing a meeting against CAA and NRC in Nizamabad on Friday.

AIMIM president and Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi on Friday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were spreading lies over the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), saying they were different from each other, while, in reality, they were “two sides of the same coin”.

Describing the NPA as the first step towards the NRC, he said there was a lot of difference between the NPR of 2010 and the NPR of 2020 as the latter was discriminatory against Muslims and certain other sections. When the facts were different, BJP leaders were spreading misinformation while sitting in television studios and chanting praise of Modi-Shah, he added.

Addressing a well-attended public meeting on the Eidgha ground near Khilla against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the NPR, he said the CAA was anti-Constitution as it negated Articles 14 and 21. Once the NPR was in, there were possibilities to harass people in the name of religion, insisting that they produce documents to prove their birth place.

‘Indicative of conspiracy’

Mr. Owaisi said the NPR would be followed by the NRC and the Prime Minister’s silence over it was indicative of the conspiracy. “This movement against the CAA and NPR is to protect secular India, its Constitution and keep the country as the country of Gandhi and Ambedkar,” he said.

Calling upon people to oppose the move of the BJP, he said this movement was not of Muslims, Hindus or Dalits but for the protection of Bharat and Hindustan. Thanking Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for his ‘commitment’ to opposing the CAA and NPR, Mr Owaisi said the former had made it clear that as long as he was alive he would not allow them in Telangana.

“As long as I am alive, I would be with KCR, and after him what happens I don’t know,” said Mr. Owaisi. TRS MLAs Mohammed Shakeel Amer and J. Surender, ZP chairman D. Vithal Rao, party district president E. Ganga Reddy and several others spoke. Representatives of Left parties, BSP, Jai Bheem Army and MRPS attended.