Bhupendra Yadav accuses parties opposing CAB of 'religious appeasement'

BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav accused parties opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, of religious appeasement and ignoring human rights of non-Muslims who fled persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

Speaking in Rajya Sabha, Yadav said that India has always accepted people from all faiths and religions and there is a need to give rights to the people faced atrocities in three "Islamic countries" due to their religion.

"If Indian politics are to be changed, I would like to tell Congress and other opposition parties that they should not forcibly misinterpret data to further their politics of appeasement and vote bank," the BJP member said in the House.

"In our culture, religious diversity and tolerance have easily been accepted. To adopting any appeasement policy amounts to ignoring the real problem," he said while accusing the opposition of "religious appeasement policies".

The BJP member said that the opposition was not trying to understand the "human aspects" involving the bill which seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslims who fled persecution and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.

"The members of the opposition are not trying to understand the human aspects of the CAB. Let me say it once again -- religion and faith are mere a number for you," he said, adding that the problem of religious persecution in the three countries needed to be addressed.

"The problem is about religion-based atrocities," he added.

Highlighting on India's religious and cultural acceptability, Yadav said, "Neither we have been xenophobia that dislikes people of other countries. nor our country has been ethnocentric that only accepts its own cultural superiority. In our country, we have considered everyone with equality.