The countrywide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are unfortunate, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale said on Sunday and urged the minority community not to be perturbed as the CAA and the NRC are not directed against them.
“These protests [against the CAA and the NRC] are being triggered by a great deal of misapprehension…the vandalism and loss of life in these protests is truly unfortunate. I urge the Muslim community to remain calm and maintain peace as the CAA and the NRC are not against them at all,” said Mr. Athawale, Republican Party of India (A) president, while backing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Athawale, whose party is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and in the State, was speaking to reporters at VVIP Circuit House following a meeting of his party’s executive committee and workers. His press conference was briefly interrupted by the sudden appearance of BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who exchanged pleasantries with the RPI (A) chief.
Declining to answer questions, Mr. Fadnavis merely said he was in the city to attend some programmes and had to immediately proceed to Kolhapur. “I reached the Circuit House after attending to my engagements in the city and learned that Mr. Athawale, too, was holding a press conference. Hence, I dropped by to meet him before leaving for Kolhapur,” Mr. Fadnavis said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Athawale hit out at the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, saying the alliance partners — the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress — make strange bedfellows and that ideological schisms are already apparent in this coalition.
“The Sena and the Congress are already at odds over the issue of according respect to Vinayak Damodar ‘Veer’ Savarkar…the two parties ought to part ways right now instead of remaining partners in an uneasy coalition,” he said.
Taking pot shots at Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Athawale asked when the impending cabinet expansion and much-anticipated portfolio allocation of the new government would take place.
“While Mr. Thackeray has announced an ambitious farm loan waiver scheme, it remains to be seen from where he will get the funds to implement it,” said the RPI (A) chief.
Commenting on the expansion of his party, Mr. Athawale said his objective in the coming year will be to increase his party’s membership to one crore.
