Protest as much as you can, centre will not back out of CAA: Amit Shah
21 Jan 2020
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Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday challenged the opposition and its leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, to hold an open debate with him on the Citizenship amendment Act (CAA) and explain how it strips Indian citizens, including Muslims, of their citizenship.
Addressing a pro-CAA rally in Lucknow, Shah said the Congress, Samajwadi Party, TMC and other opposition parties are spreading lies and creating confusion among the gullible among Muslim citizens that the new legislation is against their interests.
“The anti-CAA parties are spreading propaganda and spreading illusions that’s why the BJP is running the Jan Jagran Abhiyan, which is a public awareness campaign against those who break the country,” he said.
“I have introduced this bill in the Lok Sabha. I want to tell the opposition that you should discuss this bill publicly. If it can take citizenship of any person, then prove it and show it,” added Shah.
The opposition, Shah said, can protest as much as they want against the CAA but the BJP-led government at the Centre will not scrap the new law. "Let me say this here and now, this law will not be withdrawn, no matter who protests... We are not scared of opposition, we were born in it," he asserted.
Shah also attacked the opposition for misleading and trying to instigate Muslims in the name of CAA.
Addressing a pro-CAA rally at Bihar's Vaishali, on 16 January, Shah had accused the opposition parties of inciting violence during anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and some other parts of the country.
The CAA, which grants citizenship to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian refugees from Islamic nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who entered India on or before 31 December 2014, is being used as ammo by the opposition to trigger widespread protests across the country.
