Modi govt spreading falsehood on 'unconstitutional' CAA: Kapil Sibal

The Congress on Tuesday accused the Narendra Modi government of spreading falsehood regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which it said was "unconstitutional" as the country's Constitution does not allow grant of citizenship on the basis of religion.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal challenged Amit Shah for a debate on the new law, hours after the home minister challenged Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders for the same.

His comments came a day before the Supreme Court is set to hear petitions challenging the amended citizenship law.

Addressing a press conference, Sibal said Prime Minister Modi and Shah were spreading a "set of nine lies" on the amended citizenship law, and wondered how the people of the country would believe them.

"The government, the prime minister and home minister are perpetrating nine lies on CAA. Their first lie is that CAA is not discriminatory. The Constitution has five provisions for citizenship and religion is not mentioned anywhere. Citizenship Act, 1955, also contains the same provisions," Sibal told reporters.

"India's Constitution says you cannot give citizenship on the basis of religion," he said, alleging that it was the prime minister and the home minister who were spreading lies on the issue and misrepresenting the provisions of the new law.

Sibal alleged that the government brought the new law deliberately in order to divert people's attention from key issues such as economy and price rise.

On whether the states need to implement CAA, he termed the question "academic" and said, "Attempts are being made to create a controversy out of nothing."
He said the third lie is that Modi said in a rally on December 22 that there was no discussion on NRC after he formed government. "Whereas, in the President's address to the Joint Session of Parliament on June 20, 2019, NRC implementation primarily was announced."
Sibal said the government's claim that NRC is yet to begin is a "lie" as "NRC commencement notification has been issued effective April 1."
Claims that the National Population Register (NPR) has no relation with NRC is the "sixth lie", he alleged, adding, "The home ministry's 2018-19 annual report stated that, 'NPR is the first step towards implementing NRC'."