HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution, opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as well as the National Population Register (NPR) in its present form after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao moved the resolution on Monday.
“In view of the apprehensions among a large section of people of India, the Legislative Assembly of Telangana urges the government of India to amend the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 in order to remove all references to any religion or to any foreign country,” the resolution said.
The Telangana Assembly became the seventh one to oppose the CAA and NPR. Already State Legislative Assemblies of West Bengal, Kerala, Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi and Bihar adopted similar resolutions.
The Telangana Assembly resolution also stated that: “This House urges the government of Telangana to take all necessary steps to safeguard the people of Telangana from exercises such as NPR and NRC.”
Divisive politics
Moving the resolution, the Chief Minister asked “whether this type of divisive and narrow-minded politics are necessary for the country?” “The citizenship should be there, but the present procedure for granting it is not proper,” he said.
Drawing the attention of the House to US President Donald Trump’s statement that he would build a wall to stop the illegal immigrants to US from Mexico, Chandrasekhar Rao said that if the Central government wanted to construct a similar wall all along the border with Myanmar, the Telangana government too would support the initiative.“But within the country, divisive politics are ill-advised,” Rao said.
The Chief Minister said that the passport, Aadhar, PAN card and others were not taken into consideration for NRC. “I do not have a birth certificate. How can I bring my father’s birth certificate? How the downtrodden and nomads would produce birth certificates?” Rao asked.
Chandrasekhar Rao recalled that the TRS supported the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. But the CAA and NRC are against the Preamble of the Constitution, he said.
Recalling the widespread protests across the country at a time when US President Donald Trump was visiting India, Chandrasekhar Rao decried that some people used slogans like “Goli Maaro Saalon Ko” (shoot the traitors).
“Civilised society like India cannot tolerate this,” Rao pointed out. “So many problems like drinking water, irrigation and unemployment issues are plaguing the country. But instead of taking them up, why bring up CAA and NPR? What will be the image of the country in the international fora?” Rao asked.
Rao said that the CAA and NPR are not the Hindu-Muslim issue, but the problem of the entire population of the country. The then Home Minister Gurudas Kamat announced in the Lok Sabha that the multi-purpose national identity card exercise was a “failed experiment” due to “weak document base”, he said.
Stating that the people are also not believing the words of the Central government on NRC, he said: “The statement laid in Parliament by Ministry of Home Affairs clearly stated that the NRP is the first step towards the NRC. But, Home Minister Amit Shah denied it. Which is correct?” Rao wondered.
“If the Centre wants to give national identity card, it should be in a new format and not in the present format,” he said.