C'garh cabinet passes anti-CAA resolution, may bring motion in

The Congress-led Chhattisgarh government is likely to table a resolution in the state Legislative Assembly against the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

The state cabinet on Thursday passed a resolution opposing the Act and urged the Centre to repeal it, citing protests across Chhattisgarh.

During the budget session of the Assembly, the state government is likely to table an anti-CAA resolution, parliamentary affairs minister Ravindra Choubey said here.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, making a formal appeal in this regard.

Kerala, West Bengal and Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Punjab have already adopted resolutions against the Act, calling it discriminatory.

The Act provides for grant of citizenship to non- Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before 2015 fleeing religious persecution.

Choubey said the Act was "against the sentiments of the people of Chhattisgarh".

"Chhattisgarh is witnessing massive peaceful protests against the Act by different sections of society. Chhattisgarh originally has inhabitants belonging to Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, OBCs," Baghel said in his letter to Modi.

"And a huge chunk of the state's population lives below poverty line, are landless and illiterate. They will surely face difficulties in fulfilling the formalities required by the Act. The CAA erodes the Constitution's fundamental structure on secularism," the chief minister wrote.