State governments have no authority over citizenship, says Gulab Chand Kataria

BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly Gulab Chand Kataria said on Friday that state governments have no authority with respect to Citizenship.

Rajasthan Assembly on Saturday passed a resolution asking Centre to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

"If someone has read the Constitution carefully, this is the Centre's issue and the state governments have no authority to give citizenship. The law does not say that citizenship will be taken away," said Kataria.

While, BJP leader Vasudev Devnani attacked the Congress for tabling resolution against CAA saying "Congress who is against BJP, is slowly turning into an anti-India organisation."

Congress leader Wajib Ali said, "CAA is being implemented to divert the attention of people from unemployment, economic slowdown. NRC has failed in Assam, 20 lakh people could not present their documents and Centre is implementing it in the entire nation."

"We are not opposing citizenship being given to refugee, we are against giving citizenship to refugee after checking their religion," he added.

The newly-enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, grants citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.