CAA: Ram Madhav lambasts oppn for 'creating confusion' among

Asserting that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is an inclusive law not against any citizen or religion of the country, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav on Sunday slammed opposition parties for allegedly spreading misinformation and creating confusion among the people.

Madhav also criticised the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal for not allowing National Population Register (NPR) updation in the state and blamed her for doing a "flip flop" on the issue of infiltration from Bangladesh.

"I want to make it very clear that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act is not at all discriminatory. It is an inclusive law and is not against any religion or citizen of this country. It is about granting citizenship to the persecuted minorities from neighbouring nations," Madhav, who is the national general secretary of the BJP, said.

Accusing the opposition parties of deliberately spreading misinformation and creating confusion among the people, he said there are certain rules for obtaining citizenship in this country, under which Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and Pakistani singer Adnan Sami became Indian nationals.

Madhav and TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar were key speakers at a talk show on "The New Contours of Citizenship".

Speaking on the issue of NRC, Madhav said the matter has not been discussed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already clarified the matter.

The BJP leader reminded the audience that Banerjee, then a Lok Sabha MP, had thrown a bunch of papers at the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal in 2005 after her notice for an adjournment motion on illegal migration of Bangladeshis into West Bengal was rejected.

Madhav said the TMC leader herself had raised the issue of illegal immigration in Parliament but is now opposing the NRC as it suits her political agenda.

"I would request people not to trust the TMC, as today they are saying one thing, but tomorrow they may say something completely different," he said.

Speaking on the topic, Dastidar said the law itself is a confusing, biased against Muslims and has violated the basic principles of secularism and equality of the Constitution.

The allegation was termed as baseless by Madhav.