BHUBANESWAR: Union minister and senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday accused the Congress of misleading the people in the country on the Citizenship Ame-ndment Act (CAA), 2019 and said urged the grand old party to refrain from “petty politics” to ens-ure and peace order.

Mr Pradhan said this while launching the party’s Jana Jagaran Abhiyan programme Odisha.

Stating that the Congress was solely responsible for the country-wide violence over the CAA, the minister said those were ‘sponsored’ protests which were being supported by the Congress.

The Union minister further pointed out how leaders of the current rival party, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had strongly advocated the same legislation in the past.

Responding to Mr Pradhan’s statements, Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik said, “We believe in non-violence and secularism.”