‘Check out this hashtag’: PM Modi says ‘show your support’ for Citizenship Act

Mangalore Today News Network / Yahoo

New Delhi, Dec 30, 2019:   In an attempt to drum up public support over the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a Twitter outreach campaign using the hashtag ’#IndiaSupportsCAA’ and reiterated that the law was not meant to deprive anyone of their citizenship.

 

PM Modi tweeted, "#IndiaSupportsCAA because CAA is about giving citizenship to persecuted refugees and not about taking anyone’s citizenship away."

The Prime Minister also urged the citizens to refer to the NaMo mobile app for further information and to extend their support to the law. "Check out this hashtag in Your Voice section of Volunteer module on NaMo App for content, graphics, videos and more. Share and show your support for CAA," he added.

Earlier, Union Home Minister Amit Shah too clarified that the citizenship law had no provision of taking away anyone’s citizenship. “This Act has no provision of snatching the citizenship of anyone, including minorities. It only has the provision of granting citizenship to minorities who came here from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan," he had said in Shimla.

Twenty-six people were killed in the protests against the citizenship law and proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) that broke out in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Mangalore among other areas. Nineteen of them died in Uttar Pradesh alone.

More than half-a-dozen state governments, including Bihar, led by BJP ally JD(U), have opposed implementation of a nation-wide NRC. At least two have also said they won’t allow the National Population Register (NPR) as it might lead to an NRC.

PM Modi had said that there has been no discussion on NRC since the time his government was first elected in 2014. However, senior ministers and party leaders, including Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP working president J P Nadda, have made public statements about a pan-India exercise — as recently as earlier this month.

The BJP’s manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections also promised NRC in “other parts of the country in a phased manner”. Under the headline, ‘Combating Infiltration’, the manifesto said the party would complete the process of NRC in areas where illegal migration has affected people’s livelihood and employment. “In future, we will implement NRC in a phased manner in other parts of the country,” it said.

But, signalling a climbdown, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told The Indian Express on Friday: “As far as NRC is concerned, it is limited to Assam. There is no plan of NRC in any other part of the country. You are talking about an unborn baby.”