Patna, Feb 16: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday asserted that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was brought in by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre out of “humanitarian considerations” and lambasted the opposition for “politicizing the issue”.
The partys national general secretary in-charge for Bihar and Rajya Sabha member Bhupendra Yadav also told reporters that denial of a scheduled meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to a delegation of Shaheen Bagh protesters was “a decision taken by the administration and police in Delhi taking into account the situation on the ground”.
He, however, declined to comment on a video purportedly a two-month-old CCTV footage – viral on social media wherein police personnel can be seen storming a library inside the Jamia Millia Islamia and baton charging the students engrossed in books.
“I am not sure about the authenticity of the video and hence it would not be proper for me to comment on it,” Yadav said.
The BJP leader was here to take part in a meeting of the partys office-bearers in Bihar which was attended, among others, by state unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal and the latters predecessor and Union minister Nityanand Rai.
“I must say that the CAA was a decision taken out of humanitarian considerations (maanavata ke aadhar par). It is deplorable that the opposition has politicized the issue to the hilt,” said Yadav whose party is facing the heat of country-wide protests against the contentious legislation as well as the NPR which many fear would be followed by country- wide implementation of NRC despite statements to the contrary by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“It is about granting citizenship to people, not snatching it away from anybody,” said the BJP leader about the law that aims to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who entered India on or before December 31, 2014 from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, having fled religious persecution in their countries.
