Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday declared that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will not be enforced in the state and questioned the silence of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the issue.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi have not yet reacted to the implementation of CAA.
The Kerala CM further asserted that the state will not bow down and neither it will remain silent over the issue of CAA.
He stated that CAA is a threat to the idea of India and validates religious discrimination.
His remarks holds significance as they come after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that states have no choice but implement CAA since citizenship is a Centre’s subject.
Earlier on Monday, the central government had notified the rules for the implementation of CAA more than four years after it was passed by the Parliament in December 2019.
The law seeks to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists and Christians — but not Muslims — who migrated to India before December 31, 2014.
The Opposition parties have accused the Modi government of giving religious angle to the citizenship.
Reacting to its implementation, the Congress party had said that the government wants to make it a Hindu-Muslim issue.
Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, Tuesday said that if INDIA bloc’s government comes to power it withdraw the provision.
Tharoor said he would have welcomed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) if Muslims were not excluded from seeking citizenship under the law.
“I must say, if the INDIA alliance and the Congress party come to power, we will withdraw this provision of the law beyond any shadow of a doubt. It’s going to be in our manifesto. We will not support introducing religion into our citizenship and into our nation’s life,” Tharoor said,” the Congress leader said.