All Congress-ruled assemblies, one by one, are set to pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), bolstering their political protests against the Modi government’s controversial law.
The move comes after the all-party meeting convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on January 13 called upon state governments opposing CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC) to pass a resolution in the assembly against National Population Register (NPR) exercise. Key Opposition parties such as the Congress, Left and Trinamool considers the NPR – an exercise initiated during the Manmohan Singh government – is being used by the current regime as the stepping stone of CAA-NRC.
The Punjab Assembly, led by Chief Minister Captain Amrinder Singh, has already passed a resolution against the CAA. The resolution on January 17 asked the Centre to roll back CAA as it was found to be “inherently discriminatory”.
Rajasthan Assembly is expected to be the next Congress-ruled state to pass a resolution against the CAA. The Assembly, which will meet on January 24 will take up the resolution on a priority basis.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “CAA is an attack on India’s Constitution. People’s movement against CAA shall continue courageously & fearlessly. Citizens, parties and states shall continue to oppose CAA determinedly,” indicating that in coming days more Opposition-ruled states would be adopting such resolutions.
According to a non-Congress Opposition leader, the Opposition meeting had appealed to the chief ministers to pass assembly resolutions after it was noticed that Congress-ruled assemblies have not passed resolutions like Kerala or West Bengal.
“If all Opposition ruled states pass resolution to boycott CAA, NRC and NPR the government can’t do anything as it is the state’s human resource and machinery that are used for such exercises,” claimed CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.
