Amit Shah to address rally in Jodhpur, part of BJP plan to corner Ashok Gehlot over CAA

Amid the largescale protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a public meeting in Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s home turf, Jodhpur, on January 3.

The rally is part of the BJP’s mass awareness campaign across the country to educate people about the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

This will be Shah’s first public meeting in Rajasthan after becoming the home minister.

The BJP had earlier planned to hold the public meeting in Jaipur but then decided to change the venue to Jodhpur because of its political significance. As part of its strategy, the party is trying to corner Gehlot on his home turf.

Jodhpur is Gehlot’s constituency. He has been vigourously opposing the CAA and has stressed that Rajasthan will not implement the act. He also led a large protest march in Jaipur against the CAA last week.

Earlier this month, Shah had said during the debate on the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha that Gehlot had in 2006 written to then home minister P Chidambaram to grant citizenship to Hindu and Sikh migrants from Pakistan.

In a tweet, Gehlot had shot back that Shah was misleading people and he had sought citizenship only for Hindus and Sikhs because there were no migrants from other minorities who had fled from Pakistan to Rajasthan.