Shah dare on CAA, silence on NRC Shah has accused Congress of inciting violence during the anti-CAA protests in Delhi and threatened ‘punishment’

Shah in Shimla on Friday. (PTI)

TT, 28.12.19, New Delhi: Amit Shah on Friday adopted an aggressive posture on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act for the second day running, accusing the Congress of spreading fear among minorities and daring Rahul Gandhi to show one clause in the new law that strips anyone of citizenship.

Information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar too attacked Rahul, calling him the “biggest liar of 2019” for his description of the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register as a “tax on the poor people”.

The concerted attack suggests the ruling dispensation has decided not to be seen as defensive in the face of the countrywide protests against the citizenship overdrive, but to try and paint the Congress as concerned solely about the welfare of Muslims.

On Thursday, Shah had accused the “tukde-tukde gang led by the Congress” of inciting the violence during the anti-citizenship act protests in Delhi and threatened “punishment”.

“No one will be stripped of their citizenship. Congress and company are spreading rumours that the citizenship of the minorities will be taken away through the CAA,” the home minister said at a party event in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, on Friday.

“I challenge Rahul baba to show even one clause in the CAA that has a provision to take away anyone’s citizenship.”

The CAA proposes to give citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Shah had told a public rally that the CAA would be brought first and then an all-India National Register of Citizens would be drawn up to “weed out illegal immigrants”.

While the CAA on its own has been described as unconstitutional because it discriminates on the ground of religion, it is the combination of the CAA and the NRC that the protests have erupted against. The worry is that while non-Muslims left out of the NRC will get citizenship through the CAA, the Muslims who are left out will have nowhere to go. Also, going by the NRC experience in Assam, everyone irrespective of religion will face harassment and anxiety with the poor suffering the most.

Earlier, Shah had got into election mode and accused the previous UPA government of having pursued a soft security policy and allowed infiltration from Pakistan.

“There was a Congress government for 10 years. Sonia-Manmohan’s government was there and every day Alia-Jamalia used to enter and behead our soldiers. The country’s Prime Minister used to remain silent,” he said.

“Alia-Jamalia” appears to be Shah’s own coinage for “every Tom, Dick and Harry”, with the tacit implication that he is talking of Muslims. The BJP president had repeated these lines at almost every campaign meeting ahead of this year’s general election and the recent state polls.

Shah also repeated his pet theme of how Modi’s “56-inch chest” government had given Pakistan a “fitting reply” in the form of the 2016 “surgical strikes” and the February 2019 Balakot air strikes.

He, however, refrained from reaffirming his promise of a nationwide NRC to identify “infiltrators”.