'Congress party's official stand will be our stand in MP': Kamal Nath on Citizenship Act

Addressing the Indian Women’s Press Club, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister accused the Narendra Modi government of practising 'politics of distractions.'
Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath (Photo | PTI)
Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath (Photo | PTI)

BHOPAL: On the day when Congress moved the Supreme Court against the validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said whatever is the Congress party’s official stand over the issue will be “our stand in MP.”

Addressing the Indian Women’s Press Club, he accused the Narendra Modi government of practising “politics of distractions” and added that the amended Citizenship Act was an attempt to change the narrative by “design.”

While maintaining that he was most worried about the future of the Indian youth given the present economic state of the nation, Nath said, “The worst part is the politics of distraction, changing the orbit of people’s imagination. Every time there is an economic slowdown, a bill is introduced and a decision is taken to distract people.”

Dropping enough hints about the amended Citizenship Act not being implemented in Madhya Pradesh, the septuagenarian politician also made it clear that whatever is the Congress party’s official stand on the issue, “it will be our stand in Madhya Pradesh also.”

The MP CM’s statement over the issue came just a few hours after a Congress MLA in Madhya Pradesh threatened to resign from the Vidhan Sabha, if the state government went ahead with implementing NRC and Citizenship (Amendment) Act in the Congress-ruled state.

Talking to journalists after addressing a public gathering over the issue in old Bhopal, the Bhopal-Madhya seat legislator Arif Masood said on Thursday late night, “I’ll clearly tell my leader (Kamal Nath) that just like West Bengal CM Mamta Banarjee has shown courage over the issue, our government in Madhya Pradesh needs to show similar courage and reject CAB and NRC. But if the NRC-CAB are executed in MP, I won’t continue to be a member of the State Assembly.”

The first-time legislator also gave a call to the people of Bhopal to launch a major nationwide non-violent movement against the NRC-CAB.

“We’ve been told that clerics at a mosque in Bhopal initiated the freedom struggle movement through a letter decades ago. It’s time for a similar non-violent nationwide movement against NRC-CAB to be launched from the streets of Bhopal,” said Masood.

Just a few hours earlier on Thursday, the MP Minister for Minority Affairs Arif Aqeel (only Muslim minister in Kamal Nath government) had said, “It’s not your father’s country, it’s a nation which belongs to everyone. Our ancestors too have shed their blood for building this country, we’ll live here till our last gasp. Even their fathers can’t dislodge from here, we were born here and will die here only,” said Aqeel, the six-time Congress MLA from Bhopal-Uttar seat.

And it wasn’t just a first-time MLA or an MP minister who vehemently voiced their opposition against the CAB-NRC.

Congress veteran and former Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi dubbed the amendment in the Citizenship Act as a gang-rape with the preamble and spirit of the Indian Constitution.

“It’s like murdering our founding fathers’ dream of making India a democratic, secular, sovereign and socialist republic and is a step towards their (BJP’s) agenda of making India’s Hindu Rashtra. But our country’s people won’t tolerate it and never allow it to happen,” said Qureshi.

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