PANJIM: The Congress on Saturday claimed that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is being brought by the NDA government to ‘divert’ attention of the people from its “massive” failures on the economic front.
Several Congress workers led by party President Girish Chodankar, Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat and MP Francisco Sardinha held ‘Save India Save Constitution’ Rally in the city, that concluded with a public meeting at Azad Maidan.
Addressing the meeting, Chodankar said that Narendra Modi-led government brought CAA to divert the anger of the country and the attention of the countrymen from the failed promises like unemployment, economic failure, farmers’ distress, etc.
“When you are not able to run the government, you try to make use of communal ground. It all started with scrapping of Article 370, followed by Ram Mandir and now CAA and NRC. We don’t know what is going to be next,” Chodankar said.
“NDA government is out to slowly wipe out one religion that is Muslim,” he charged adding that the sole aim of CAA is to make India run on RSS ideology and principles.
On NRC, Chodankar said it would pose problems, not just to Muslim community but to the poor people like nomadic tribes, as they would be required to produce documents such as birth certificate to prove their citizenship.
Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat said that CAA is an attack on Indian constitution, as the constitution has no provision to decide on citizenship based on religion. “First time Citizenship is linked to religion and that is complete unjust and hence we see people coming on road,” he said.
Referring to BJP’s rallies in support of CAA, former Chief Minister said, “first time in the history, we can see people coming on road in support of a Bill, passed by Parliament”. He too admitted that the gimmick of CAA and the NRC has been started.
Earlier Lok Sabha MP Francisco Sardinha said that when the Bill was introduced in the Parliament, Congress had opposed it because the law was against the spirit of the Constitution. “However, NDA managed to pass it having majority,” he said. Sardinha urged people of Goa to be united and not to allow BJP to divide and rule based on discrimination.
