CAA set to emerge as dominant LS poll issue

CPI(M), Congress to take out separate protest marches to resist the contentious 2019 enactment; parties argue that Citizenship (Amendment) Act goes against the grain of the Constitution; Pinarayi Vijayan terms it a dangerous ploy to divide people on relig

The Central government’s framing of rules to enforce the contentious and “patently antiMuslim” Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) has emerged as the dominant political issue at the hustings ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Congress have announced separate protest marches and meetings to resist the contentious 2019 enactment that they claim effectively bars Muslim refugees and naturalised emigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan from applying for Indian citizenship.

Both parties argued that the CAA went against the grain of the Indian Constitution. The law, they claimed, brazenly set religion as the criteria for emigrants who entered India before December 31, 2014, to apply for Indian citizenship. The Congress and the CPI(M) said the move could disenfranchise lakhs of naturalised emigrants, especially in the northeastern States, and lay the ground for social unrest.

The CPI(M) State secretariat said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had reignited a highly polarising issue to politically offset the Supreme Court (SC) directive to publish the details of the electoral bonds purchased and encashed behind the scenes to protect the identity of the corporate donors and their political beneficiaries.

Discriminatory law

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan termed it a dangerous ploy to divide the electorate on religious lines for electoral dividends. Mr. Vijayan said the discriminatory law sought to segregate Muslims from the rest of society and relegate them as subaltern citizens. The CAA aspires to put citizens on different social tiers. He called for bipartisan political support to extinguish the existential threat to India’s secular society and religious freedom.

Mr. Vijayan recalled that Kerala was the first State to move the Supreme Court against the “deeply divisive” law. Moreover, in 2019, the Kerala Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution demanding the law’s withdrawal just about unanimously, with the sole Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator O. Rajagopal being the only voice of dissent in the House.

Mr. Vijayan reiterated the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) commitment that the State government would not implement the law and oppose the Centre’s bid to create a National Population Register.

‘Will shred the law’

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the United Democratic Front (UDF) would take to the streets to protest the move to implement the CAA. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran said the INDIA bloc would shred the law and throw it into the Arabian Sea if it ascends to power at the Centre. Communist Party of India (CPI) State Secretary Binoy Viswam said the Sangh ParivarBJP campaign laid the foundation for a Hindu majoritarian nationalist society by subverting the core principles of the Constitution.

Bid to polarise: IUML

Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader Panakkad Sadikali Shihab Thangal said the BJP had pulled off a deeply schismatic election stunt to polarise the electorate into religious lines ahead of the LS polls.