THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/NEW DELHI: A day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attacked it for being silent on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in its manifesto, the
Congress switched to damage-control mode on Sunday, with senior leader P Chidambaram asserting that the controversial law will be repealed if INDIA bloc is voted to power.
Clarifying the party’s stand, the former Union minister said, “I have a list with me, of a large number of laws, in which we have mentioned that five laws would be repealed. One of the five laws is CAA. Why we dropped the list in the manifesto is because it was already too long. This manifesto is 46 pages and it is a long list of 40 to 50 laws. I am the chairman of the manifesto committee, take it from me. CAA will be repealed.’’
“We will repeal, amend, and review the following sets of laws- CAA 2019 is at the top of the list,” Chidambaram said at a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram.
TNIE had reported that though ‘repealing and amending of CAA’ figured in the original draft of the Congress manifesto, the top leadership of the party decided to drop any mention of the controversial legislation in the document. Instead, the manifesto said it would repeal all anti-people laws passed by the NDA if the INDIA bloc came to power in 2024, without referring to CAA.
During the press conference, Chidambaram reiterated that all “anti-people” laws, especially those relating to workers, farmers, criminal justice, environment and forests, and digital data protection, would be thoroughly reviewed and changed. However, there is no mention of CAA in this section.
The Congress’ ambiguous stand on CAA in the manifesto had raised eyebrows as the CPI, CPM and other INDIA bloc parties like the DMK and TMC have promised to repeal the legislation in their manifestos. Asked whether the Ram Temple at Ayodhya will have any impact in the election, Chidambaram quipped, “We are happy that Ayodhya has got a temple now. People wanted a temple there and it has come up. That should be the end of the story. Why should the temple hog attention in an election?”
