Shabbir Ali demands special Assembly session to reject CAA, NRC

Hyderabad: Former minister and ex-Leader of Opposition in Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Thursday demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao convene a special session of Legislative Assembly to pass a resolution rejecting Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and proposed National Register of Citizenship (NRC).

Addressing a meeting convened by Telangana State & Andhra Pradesh Joint Action Committee on CAA & NRC here, Shabbir Ali urged the organisations, who are part of JAC, to pressurise the Chief Minister to officially announce that he would not implement both CAA and NRC in Telangana State. He pointed out that Chief Ministers of Congress and Left-parties ruled-States, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and others have already made similar announcements. He said although the TRS has been supporting BJP Government at the Centre since 2014, it voted against the CAA in the Parliament. Therefore, he said the Chief Minister should immediately convene a special session and announce rejection of CAA and NRC.

Shabbir Ali said that the CAA was unconstitutional and it would be proved in the Supreme Court. He accused BJP Government of creating a communal divide in the name of granting citizenship to six minority groups from three neighbouring countries. He said BJP has tried to kill the very spirit of the Constitution by linking citizenship with religion. He said CAA was inspired by the ideology of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who wrote a book 'Hindutva' in 1917 and published it in 1923. However, he said the idea was rejected by Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Moulana Azad and other Congress leaders and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar provided us a secular constitution. He alleged that the BJP was now trying to change the Constitution, clause-by-clause.

The Congress leader condemned the police brutality on students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University during anti-CAA protests. He said lakhs of students from India's 23 premier universities came out in support of JMI and AMU students to condemn police atrocities. He said BJP's ideology of giving citizenship on the basis of religion does not have many takers and anti-CAA protests have erupted across the country.

Shabbir Ali said that the Congress party, which has been fighting against the unconstitutional Act at the national level, would support all peaceful protests against the CAA and NRC.