The Gujarat Legislative Assembly on Friday passed a resolution supporting the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, both natives of the State, for securing the passage of the bill in both houses of the Parliament.
The resolution, moved by Gujarat’s Minister of the State for Home Pradipsinh Jadeja, was passed by a majority vote after a two-hour-long heated discussion that saw the independent legislator and Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani calling it a “black day” in the history of Gujarat’s Assembly.
“Since CM Vijay Rupani himself was born in Burma and then came to India; he should not support CAA, which is discriminatory and violates the constitutional principles of secularism and pluralism,” Mr. Mevani later told reporters outside the Assembly, after the resolution was passed in the house.
The resolution congratulated Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah for their “bold and historic decision” to bring in the bill and ensure its passage in Parliament and make it a law to provide citizenship to the persecuted religious minorities of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
During the debate on the resolution, Congress MLA Imran Khedawala displayed a poster opposing the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), which had been written in his own blood. The House was also adjourned for 15 minutes following a ruckus during the proceedings.
