HYDERABAD: Asserting that there was nothing anti-constitutional in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra on Thursday slammed AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for opposing it.
Calling Owaisi “Instigator in Chief” and “Neo Jinnah”, Patra accused him of wanting to score political brownie points on the issue.
Delivering a talk on ‘Constitutional and moral imperatives of the CAA: Decoding the Polemics’ organised by party’s state unit here, the BJP leader stressed the need to explain the law to two people in Hyderabad Owaisi and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
“One is Instigator in Chief and he is not an ordinary person, he is Neo Jinnah. His (Owaisi’s) right hand and accomplice (AIMIM leader Waris Pathan) said 15 crore people (Muslims) can be tough on 100 crore majority population.
But, did the Instigator in Chief regret for even 15 seconds?” he asked. Claiming that CAA was not meant to take away the rights of anyone, he said it was to provide Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities who fled Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. “Being a barrister, is he (Asaduddin Owaisi) not able to understand what CAA is? Is he not able to understand that CAA is not anti-Muslim, and not in any way discriminatory? Is he not able to understand that CAA is constitutional?” he asked.
Patra alleged that Owaisi wants to divide the country and his political bread bakes.
Charging Owaisi with wanting to score political brownie points over CAA, the BJP leader said the AIMIM MP has no concern for India and that is the reason he was in Hyderabad to explain the truth.
On Telanagna government’s decision to pass a resolution in the assembly against CAA, Patra said, “we will make him (Chandrasekhar Rao) understand by showing him all the relevant documents in a democratic manner.”
Hitting out at Congress leaders, TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee and Left parties for their opposition to the amended law, he said all of them had earlier sought for granting citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
On the protests against CAA, he said, “this CAA we are discussing is the ninth amendment. There has never been ruckus earlier, but now there is and CAA is not the issue.. the fight going on now is agenda-driven.” On the killing of a policeman and an IB officer during violence in Delhi, Patra said, “the way they (protesters) are acting against the country’s police, para-military force, working against country’s system they are not protesters.”
Condemning the riots in Delhi, Patra said Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Asaduddin Owaisi and others who “instigated” it should to apologise to the nation. PTI
