Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday said in the Rajya Sabha he did not think the “women and children” protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Shaheen Bagh here were “anti-national” but rather had been “misled” by Opposition parties.
Mr. Naqvi was speaking during the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President for his address to Parliament on January 31 when he said the “bogus bashing brigade” was conspiring to “fool people” regarding the CAA. Since Parliament passed it on December 11, protests have sprung up against the law that fast-tracks citizenship for six religious groups, excluding Muslims, from three neighbouring countries.
The Minister said the BJP-led NDA government had stopped the “political exploitation” of minorities that he accused previous governments of doing. Mr. Naqvi said India was “heaven for minorities” while “Pakistan is hell” for them. He said political parties were trying to cause a “constitutional crisis” and ‘anarchy’, with several States coming out in opposition to it.
The Opposition, on the other hand, continued its attack on the government over the state of the economy and other issues left out of the President’s address, in what was day two of the discussion.
‘Crisis of confidence’
Congress MP Digvijaya Singh said there was a “crisis of confidence” and that the government was responding to the deteriorating condition of the economy by “selling the temples of modern India” — the public sector undertakings. He asked the government to roll back the CAA and to clearly state that the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register would not be made.
