Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has accused that the Congress national leadership is only having a bleak response against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Vijayan told reporters here on Thursday that while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was pretending to be unaware of CAA, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge just made a namesake reaction on social media.
Countering BJP's allegations that the CPM was indulging in Muslim appeasement over the issue for electoral gains, the CPM senior leader said that it was the BJP which was trying to make political gains by creating communal divide in the country.
He also termed as baseless the allegations of Congress leaders in Kerala that majority of the cases registered in connection with protest against CAA in Kerala were not yet withdrawn.
CAA is unconstitutional
Vijayan added that CAA was unconstitutional, against human rights, and poses a challenge to the idea of India.
He alleged that the contentious legislation grants legal validity to religious discrimination.
He said that the only reaction from the Congress was that by Jairam Ramesh, party general secretary and in-charge of communications, questioning why the rules were hurriedly notified now more than four years after the legislation was passed by the Parliament.
Vijayan contended that despite the lack of support from the Congress, the Kerala government will neither bend nor keep silent on the CAA issue.
The CAA was passed in December 2019 and subsequently got the President's assent, but there were protests in several parts of the country against it, with many opposition parties speaking out against the law, calling it 'discriminatory'.
The Act grants citizenship to undocumented migrants of all religions -- except Muslims -- from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
(With PTI inputs)