Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

Punish ‘tukde-tukde’ gang for Capital violence: Shah

CAA PROTESTS Home minister slams Congress for clashes over past week

- HT Correspond­ent htcorrespo­ndent@hindustant­imes.com

It is time to punish the tukde tukde gang, which is responsibl­e for the violence in the streets of the national capital with the help of the Congress.

In Parliament, no one was willing to say anything (on CAA). Later they started spreading misinforma­tion and disrupted peace in Delhi AMIT SHAH, Union home minister

NEWDELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday blamed the Congress and the so-called “tukde-tukde gang” he said the party leads for fanning unrest in Delhi over the Citizenshi­p (Amendment) Act , or CAA, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) . Shah also said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had done nothing for the city.

Shah targeted the two parties, which reacted strongly, ahead of elections due to take place by February to the Delhi assembly.

“I want to say that the Congress and the tukde-tukde gang led by it are responsibl­e for the unrest in the city. It is time to punish them. They are to be blame for the violence in the city. People of Delhi should punish them,” Shah said after laying the foundation stone for an integrated developmen­t hub at Karkardoom­a in east Delhi.

Tukde-tukde gang is a phrase coined by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and its politician­s for liberals who they claim sympathise with anti-national forces and want India to be broken up into pieces.

“When the Citizenshi­p Amendment Act was being discussed in Parliament, nobody (opposition parties) said anything. But once they were out (of Parliament), they started misleading people,” Shah said.

His comments came in the context of protests staged in the city over the CAA, which is aimed at speeding up the grant of Indian citizenshi­p to minorities like Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains, from the Muslim-majority nations of Afghanista­n, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as NRC, an exercise proposed to identify illegal immigrants settled in India.

The Congress has been a strong critic of the CAA on grounds that it makes Indian citizenshi­p contingent on the religious identity of those whom it seeks to benefit..

The Congress hit back at Shah. “The BJP is just baffled by the recent successes of the Congress in various states. As far as CAA-NRC is concerned, we have only led peaceful demonstrat­ions and made our stand clear that any attempt to violate the ideals of the Constituti­on of India will not be tolerated,” said Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra.

The references to recent successes of the Congress appeared to be an allusion to the Congress coming to power in

Maharashtr­a and Jharkhand as a junior partner in three-party coalitions.

Shah also targeted Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of doing nothing for Delhi and taking credit for projects planned by the Centre for Delhi, where the party came to power with a landslide in 2015 by winning 67 of the assembly’s 70 seats.

“For 57 months, Kejriwal and his government did not do any work. And for last three months, they are doing ads,” the home minister, who is also BJP president, said.

 ?? SONU MEHTA/HT PHOTO ?? Union home minister Amit Shah speaks during an event in New Delhi on Thursday.
SONU MEHTA/HT PHOTO Union home minister Amit Shah speaks during an event in New Delhi on Thursday.

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