Cong slams BJP on Prez speech hailing CAA

NEWDELHI: The Congress attacked the government on Tuesday for trying to suggest through the President’s speech that Mahatma Gandhi’s wishes had been fulfilled through the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, as sparks flew on the second day of the debate in Parliament.

Former union minister Shashi Tharoor slammed the government for misleading President Ram Nath Kovind on what Gandhi said and accused the ruling dispensation of attempting “another affront” on the father of the nation. “This quote was used to make an absurd claim that the draconian Citizenship Amendment Bill was a fulfilment of the Mahatma’s wishes,” Tharoor said.

The CAA seeks to fast-track the grant of citizenship to persecuted minorities from the Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Underlining that the Congress agrees that Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan should be offered the chance of leading a normal life in India, Tharoor said: “By merely reproducing a line without its context, not only has the

Government misled the Rahstrapati about the Rashtrapita, but has attempted yet another affront to a man who spent his lifetime advocating Hindu-muslim unity, a man who fought till the very end to resist the idea that religion should determine nationhood, which is sadly the idea they have embraced.”

Tharoor also took potshots at the Centre and said schemes should be renamed to “shutdown India and Shut-up India” because, he alleged, the government had paid mere lip-service to ambitious schemes such as Skill

India, Digital India or even Start-up India.

In the Upper House, BJP’S Bhupendra Yadav initiated the debate by launching a frontal attack on the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Yadav accused the two parties of providing “moral support” to Shaheen Bagh protests and claimed that young minds were “poisoned through hate-filled speeches” in the name of freedom of expression in the anti-caa protests.

“Congress and AAP are giving moral support to the agitation and the minds of small children are being poisoned”, Yadav said, arguing that none of the leaders or parties going to Shaheen Bagh is talking about atrocities being committed against minorities in Islamic nations.

In a counter-attack, leader of the opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, said Shaheen Bagh was a creation of the BJP. Demanding that the government bring a bill to restore the special state of Jammu and Kashmir, he accused the government for creating “destructive” issues such as CAA to divert public attention.

“Triple Talaq, CAA, NPR {National Population Registerr issues are being talked about by you to divert attention from key issues of unemployment, black money, slow GDP growth,” Azad said.

In the Lok Sabha, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh had stalled all development projects of the SP era.

Earlier in the day, Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiau Naidu held ground in the House despite Opposition attempts to force an adjournment during zero hour. He refused to yield even as the Trinamool Congress sought to disrupt proceedings in the House.