State govt to bring resolution to seek CAA repeal today
CAA provides for granting citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who had migrated to India before December 31, 2014, but not to the members of the Muslim Community.
THE RESOLUTION
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government will bring a resolution in the state assembly on Friday to seek repeal of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019.
The official resolution will be moved by a minister on the second and final day of the special session here. “...the CAA violates secular identify of India, which is the basic feature of Constitution; therefore the House resolves to urge upon the Government of India to repeal the CAA to avoid any discrimination on the basis of religion in granting citizenship and to ensure equality before law for all religious groups in the country,” reads the resolution.
The ruling Congress has been opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Chairing a meeting of the Congress Working Committee on Saturday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said that NPR 2020 was not a benign exercise but a disguised NRC. Later, the CWC demanded that the NPR process should be stopped forthwith. Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh was among the first CMS to speak out against CAA and NRC, calling them “divisive”. The state government also initially agreed to carry out the NPR in the state from May 15, but later started having second thoughts.
Its official resolution says the CAA seeks to negate the very secular fabric on which the Constitution of India is based and it is divisive and stands for everything opposed to a free and fair democracy which must enshrine equality for all. “CAA provides for granting citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who had migrated to India before December 31, 2014, but not to the members of the Muslim Community and others such as Jews. The ideology behind the CAA is thus inherently discriminatory and is as far away as it can be from being a humanitarian measure,” it says.
The resolution also mentions apprehension about NRC and National Population Register being a prelude to the NRC designed to deprive a section of persons from citizenship of India and implement CAA. “...Central government should amend the forms/documentation associated with the NPR to allay such apprehension in the minds of the people and only thereafter under work of enumeration under NPR,” it reads.