CAA not against any citizen or faith: Ram Madhav

Hyderabad: BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav has asserted that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was not against any citizen of the country.

Addressing a seminar on CAA in the Osmania University (OU) here on Friday, he alleged that the political parties are opposing the CAA as they were not aware of the facts of the Act.

Those oppose the CAA were trying to divide the country on communal lines as they couldn't face Prime Minister Narendra Modi on political front, he said.

The amended citizenship act envisages providing Indian nationality to persecuted minorities such as Hindus from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who came to India as refugees prior to December 2014.

A large number of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian refugees from Bangladesh after its declaration as an Islamic nation and subsequent developments, came to India and have been living for the past few decades.

"They came to India under adverse conditions. As per 1993 US State department's published data, there are 44 lakh refugees residing in India," he mentioned.

Madhav appealed to the Muslim community not to fall prey to the disinformation campaign carried out by some opposition parties.

"The CAA is not against Muslims or any other religion. Some of the minority community people in our country have earlier became scapegoats to this kind of campaign," he mentioned.

The BJP leader said that bringing the CAA is an unfinished agenda of the Centre right from the times of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who invited and allowed persecuted minorities from the neighbouring countries to come and live in India.

"There are certain rules for getting citizenship. We will follow them (while granting citizenship). Sonia Gandhi was also given citizenship as per the rules," he added.