New Delhi: Accusing the Congress of appeasement politics over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday said that that people seeking refuge in India were denied justice from 1947 to 2014.
“CAA is not merely to grant citizenship to people, it is also to give justice and rights to lakhs of people. Because of the appeasement politics of Congress and its allies, people seeking refuge did not get justice from 1947 to 2014,” Shah was quoted as saying by ANI while addressing a gathering after distributing citizenship certificate under CAA at Ahmedabad.
“They were tortured in neighbouring countries because they were Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain, but they were also tortured in their own country… The appeasement politics of INDIA bloc did not serve them justice… PM Modi gave them justice,” Shah pointed out.
In an apparent assurance to the Muslim community, Shah said that the CAA is about granting citizenship and not taking it away. “No one will lose citizenship as CAA is about granting rights to Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain refugees. I would like to make it clear to my Muslim brothers and sisters that CAA is about granting citizenship, not taking it away,” he underlined.
“After Partition, Congress leaders had promised to give citizenship to Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh refugees who came from neighbouring countries, but they moved away from the decision as elections approached,” the home minister added.
He pointed out that Bangladesh had 27 per cent Hindus at the time of Partition, but today they are just 9 per cent. “They were either subjected to forced religious conversion, or ran here seeking refuge.”
He exhorted refugees from all across the country to apply for citizenship as it will not impact their job or their properties since they will be “granted citizenship with retrospective effect”.
