Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday termed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act a “discriminatory and divisive” law whose “sinister” purpose was to divide people on religious lines, and asserted that the NPR in form and content was “disguised NRC”.
Addressing the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in New Delhi, she said thousands of young men and women, especially students have realized the “grave harm” that implementation of the new Citizenship law will cause.
They have taken to the streets braving the cold as well as police brutalities, Ms. Gandhi said.
“We demand that a comprehensive high-powered commission be constituted to enquire into the incidents connected with the anti-CAA protests and give justice to the affected persons,” she said.
As the students’ protest gains momentum, it is clear that the government is digging in its heels. Not a day passes without the home minister and on some days the prime minister himself making provocative statements, the Congress president said.
“The situation in some states is alarming, turning the states into police states, notably in Uttar Pradesh and the Union Territory of Delhi,” she said.
Coming down hard on the National Population Register (NPR), Ms. Gandhi told Congress top brass not to be under any illusion that it was a “benign exercise”.
“In form and content, NPR 2020 is a disguised NRC,” she said.
Ms. Gandhi also hit out at the government over the state of the economy and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
“It is a matter of anguish and concern that the people in Jammu and Kashmir continue to be denied their fundamental rights while the Government makes farcical claims of normalcy and arranges guided tours of diplomats,” she said.
Apart from Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, top party leaders P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, A K Antony, K C Venugopal, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Jyotiraditya Scindia were among those present at the meeting.
