Govt brought CAA to divert attention from 'massive failures'

The CAA was brought by the NDA government to 'divert' attention of the people from its 'massive' failures on the economic front and Congress was opposed to the measure as it was against the Constitution, AICC spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil claimed here on Thursday.

He also hit out at the top leadership of government and the BJP for allegedly speaking in different voices on the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said the cabinet was boundby collective responsibility.

India was among the five best economies in the world during the UPA rule but it had slipped down now, Gohil told reporters here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised, before the Lok Sabha polls, creation of two crore jobs every year but unemployment has reached its highest levels in 45 years and the farmers were in distress, he alleged.

to divert the anger of the country and the attention of the countrymen, the gimmick of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the NRC have been started...," he charged.

Congress was opposed to the CAA because the law was against the spirit of the Constitution, he maintained.

Like the solar eclipse, which occurred on Thursday, Modi "has thrown an eclipse" on democracy and the Constitution, he said.

On NRC, he said it would pose problems to the poor people as they would be required to produce documents such as birth certificate.

When pointed to clarifications by Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah that there were no discussions on NRC, he said Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had spoken earlier that it would be impemented across the country.

Gohil claimed that even after Modis speech in Delhi, BJP working president J P Nadda said that NRC was on their agenda and it would be implemented and asked who should be believed.

On RSS chief Mohan Bhagwats comments that some self- seeking people were dividing Hindus and Muslims and that all 130 crore people in India were Hindus, he said it was contrary to the Constitution under which "India is not a religious country."