Mysuru MP Pratap Simha has blamed Congress for the violence that rocked Mangaluru and claimed two lives on Thursday.
He told mediapersons in the city on Friday that Congress MLA and former Minister U.T. Khader had made inflammatory remarks to foment trouble that led to the violence and hence called on the Congress to take action against its MLA. Mr. Khader had reportedly stated that implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Karnataka would result in violence.
Mr. Simha said Congress was creating an ‘’atmosphere of terror’’ in the State by instigating people to take to the streets and violate the prohibitory orders imposed to prevent “rogue elements’’ from taking law into their hands. “The Congress is directly responsible for the current developments and is playing politics over the issue’’, Mr. Simha added.
“The Congress is perturbed by the popularity of the BJP government in the State which won 12 of the 15 seats in the recent byelections. People are happy with the governance under Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and hence the Congress is fomenting trouble by instigating violence in its bid to rock the government and return to power’’, he added.
Defending the CAA, the MP said it has nothing to do with Indian citizens and is an Act formulated to provide religious minorities facing oppression in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. “The Congress should differentiate from those oppressed in the neighbouring countries, from the oppressors.’’
India has a history of offering refuge to those who were persecuted, said Mr. Simha stating that the minorities enjoy more rights than the majority and hence are not oppressed in India. During Independence, Hindus constituted 85 per cent of the population but today they are 79 per cent while the Muslim population during the same period increased from around 10 per cent to around 14 per cent, which underlines that the minorities are not persecuted. But in Pakistan, the Hindu population has dwindled from around 15 per cent in 1947 to about 1.6 per cent in the present times, he added citing similar statistics for the decline of the minorities’ population in Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
He said people should stop being swayed by vested interest groups spreading canards about the CAA, which, he said, would not affect Indian citizens.
