Neither will Congress ever return to office nor will CAA go: Amit Shah

NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Monday attacked Congress leader P Chidambaram’s statement that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) and the three new criminal laws will be revoked if Congress comes to office, calling it as a brazen act of appeasement and the former finance minister’s party has lost nerve after seeing the first phase of voting. “Neither Congress will ever come to office nor the five laws enacted for public welfare will ever be revoked,” Shah said. Accusing Congress of appeasement, Shah said the opposition party is jittery after the trend of first phase of voting made it plain that it is headed for a crushing defeat.

A promise to repeal CAA, enacted to provide citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis who fled to India to escape religious persecution in the Muslim countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, is not part of the Congress manifesto. However, Chidambaram, who is also the head of Congress’s manifesto committee, made the commitment while talking to media in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) on Sunday.

Though it has been seen as a rethink prompted by CPM’s attacks on Congress and Rahul Gandhi for their silence on CAA, Chidamabram claimed that the promise to junk CAA was supposed to be part of the manifesto but could not make it to the final draft because of “space constraint”.

Shah was scathing in his response. “This law (CAA) represents the fundamental principles of the Constitution. P Chidambaram is insulting the dreams of the architects of the country’s independence who advocated for these laws by talking about scrapping them. CAA is the nation’s law, and it ensures that no one can stop citizenship from being granted to the brothers and sisters of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Sikh and Parsi communities who have suffered religious persecution and come to India,” the home minister said.

Six days after the most successful operation by security forces in Chhattisgarh in which 29 Maoists were killed in Kanker district, Union home minister Amit Shah warned Naxals to “give up arms or face severe consequences for spreading violence”. “There can be no roads, education, electricity, ration shops, gas cylinders, employment, healthcare or homes until Naxalism is eradicated in Bastar. I ask the remaining Naxalites to surrender, and we will rehabilitate you. Or else, the result of this fight has been decided – you will be eliminated,” Shah said.

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