HYDERABAD: Opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, TRS Parliamentary Party leader K Keshava Rao demanded that the Bill should be withdrawn.
“Let us not bring a new dimension to our thinking, our civilizational ethos, wherein we are dividing the nation into two,” Keshava Rao said.
It may be recalled that the TRS voted against the Bill in Lok Sabha. Stating that the Citizenship Bill challenges the very idea of India, he opposed discrimination on religion lines. Keshava Rao said: “The BJP had numbers and it could govern. But they (BJP) cannot break the Constitutional structure. One should not belittle the preamble, which is based on Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.”
“You (BJP) have the right to sit on the benches right there. But with only 40 per cent people on your side. When you are trying to talk about the people and in the name of the people, it should be about hundred per cent. That is what you call national consensus. Whenever an issue comes which concerns the nation, which concerns our Constitution, which concerns our ethos, which concerns our ideals and which concerns our philosophy, we go to seek the help of other people and seek their views also. That is what exactly the moment today is all about,” Keshava Rao said.
He said that the Citizenship Bill has two aspects. “One is essentially the Constitution and constitutional legality and the other is constitutional morality. Constitutional morality comes when you try to scan your own Constitution, the words and the laws which you have brought in. When you look into it, you see that it negates every ideal and every idea of justice laid in the Constitution,” the TRS MP said.