Terming the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as anti-secular and against the preamble of Indian Constitution, veteran Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the party will oppose it vehemently.
“The CAB is anti-secular and against the preamble of Indian Constitution. We are going to oppose it,” Ramesh said while addressing the media in Guwahati on Wednesday.
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“The CAB also violates the spirits of the Constitution. We oppose the CAB on principle and not on political grounds,” Ramesh reiterated.
“The BJP is inching towards the majority in Rajya Sabha. Home Minister Amit Shah has a Trishul-a powerful weapon- and they are pocking it to become a majority in Rajya Sabha,” Jairam Ramesh said.
“Do you know what the Trishul is? It is the ED, CBI and IT,” he added.
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“They are pocking this Trishul to get a majority. However, we are going to oppose the CAB as our opposition is on principle and not political,” he said.
The former minister also said that it is the Congress government that deserves credit for the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
“It was a Congress government who had done NRC in 1951, signed the Assam Accord in 1985 where NRC was a foundation and held a tripartite talk with All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and state government in 2005,” he added.
He said that the NRC in Assam has exposed the complete hollowness and bogusness of BJP.
“Over 19 lakh people were found as foreigners under a Supreme Court-monitored process,” he said.
“Home Minister Amit Shah is not talking about NRC in Assam now but he talks about NRC in Bengal, Jharkhand and other states,” Ramesh added.
“It is because their lies have been exposed and they are only using the NRC as a political tool to divide the society,” the former union minister said.
Asked about the Congress’ stand on the 1.9 million excluded people, Ramesh said that Congress is going to take a stand as per the constitution on the NRC and those people excluded by the NRC.
“We are going by the constitution as far as the NRC is concerned,” he said.