INDIA will repeal CAA if voted to power: Congress
NEW DELHI: As the Congress faces flak from some of the constituents of the opposition alliance over its silence on scrapping the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), senior Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi on Sunday asserted that the INDIA bloc will repeal the contentious legislation if it comes to power in 2024.
Curiously, the Congress, one of the fierce opponents of the Citizenship law implemented by the Modi government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, did not make any mention of scrapping CAA in its manifesto, which was unveiled on Friday.
The manifesto was heavily focused on social justice, youth, women, farmers, the Constitution, the economy, federalism, and national security.
Speaking to this newspaper, Lok Sabha MP from Assam and the party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Gogoi said the Congress is committed to repealing the CAA as promised by Rahul Gandhi in 2019. “We said that the CAA will be repealed in the first Cabinet meeting of the new INDIA alliance government and we are committed to fulfilling our promise,” he said.
This comes amid criticism from its INDIA bloc partner Communist Party of India (Marxist), which attacked the “silence” of the Congress on the CAA in its manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Targeting the Congress, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday said that the manifesto of the CPM had vowed to scrap “draconian laws” such as the CAA, Prevention of Money Laundering Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, among others. In its manifesto released on Saturday, the Communist Party of India (CPI) also promised to scrap the legislation if the opposition comes to power.
Responding to the criticism, Gogoi said that in 2019, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised to repeal the CAA and the party will stick to its stand. “In 2019, Rahul Gandhi has said that we will repeal CAA. Our position remains the same and we are committed to that.
People are being threatened with arrest by the BJP government if they protest against the CAA. College students have been forced to remain inside the campus with police standing guard outside. In a democratic country, everyone has the right to protest democratically. But Assam is no longer a democratic state, it is turning into a police state,” said Gogoi.
After the Centre notified the CAA rules recently, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has criticised the Act as morally and constitutionally wrong, saying that introducing religion as a criterion for citizenship contradicts constitutional principles.
Recently, Congress leader Pawan Khera also promised that the CAA will be repealed if the party comes to power.
Under the CAA, citizenship will be given to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians who have migrated to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan by December 31, 2014.