Left parties in Patna seek immediate rollback of CAA

CPI(ML) secretary general Dipankar Bhattacharya on Saturday demanded "immediate rollback" of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and withdrawal of plans to update the National Population Register, which many suspect would lay the groundwork for NRC implementation.

Bhattacharya, who took part in an agitation here with Left leaders, including CPI(M) politburo member Subhashini Ali, as part of state-wide protests against the recent measures taken by the Narendra Modi government, also asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to come clean on the issue.

"We are faced with an unprecedented danger. The spirit of our Constitution is under attack. Citizenship has been indirectly linked with religion through the CAA," Bhattacharya told reporters.

He also contended that Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman had "said on the floor of the Parliament" that the number of people who were likely to benefit from CAA -- which aims at fast-tracking the accordance of citizenship to non- Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh -- was "just about 33,000".

"Such a little number could have been accommodated under the citizenship law that was previously in place. Earlier too, India had given entry to refugees," Bhattacharya pointed out, and added that "the government may not admit it, but the RSS is busy telling people that Hindus would not suffer on account of CAA".

"Hindus need to know that most people whose citizenship was put in the doubtful category in Assam were from the majority community," the CPI(ML) leader said.

He insisted that "it is high time that Nitish Kumar took a clear stand as CAA has been implemented with his support and NPR is underway".

"What does he mean by his opposition to the NRC in this backdrop?" Bhattacharya asked.

Ali, who has been in town since Friday and had addressed citizens' protests in different parts of the Bihar capital, said "the fight does not involve just one community. The participants include women, workers and farmers who do not belong to any one religion".

She said India has survived because it adopted secularism as a guiding principle in contrast with Pakistan "which became an Islamic republic and ended up suffering disintegration with the creation of Bangladesh".

The BJP "thinks that it can get away with anything just because the party enjoys a brute majority in Parliament", she said, while advising the saffron party to learn from the example of Indira Gandhi - who enjoyed phenomenal popularity but faced electoral humiliation after Emergency in 1975.

"This is not how democracies function. Ram Vilas Paswan, who is a Union minister, has admitted that he does not know when and where his parents were born. It is not that just one particular community will face problems," Ali pointed out.

The Left parties' agitation, marked by "human chain" formations in all district headquarters of Bihar, received support from former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's HAM and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's RLSP.

Delegates from these parties were seen holding hands with Left supporters in front of the Buddha Memorial Park here, a stone's throw from the Patna Junction.