BJP door-to-door drive to corner Oppn on CAA

New Delhi: Hardening its stance in favour of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) — which is facing widespread criticism from the Opposition — the BJP has decided to launch a nationwide door-to-door campaign from January 5 to reach out to at least 3 crore people in 10 days, and highlight how the Congress and other Opposition parties are spreading lies about the CAA and inciting “rebellion and anarchy” in the country for their politics of appeasement.

Alongside the door-to-door nationwide campaign, the party leadership, including senior leaders and Union ministers, will hold public rallies in various cities. While BJP national president Amit Shah will visit households in the national capital on January 5, the party’s working president J.P. Nadda will visit households in Ghaziabad. Similarly, defence minister Rajnath Singh will visit households in Lucknow, road transport minister households in Nagpur, and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman households in Jaipur on the first day of the door-to-door campaign.

The BJP leadership will also hold press conferences, and meet intellectuals and prominent people from various fields and aggressively utilise social media to garner support for the CAA. The party has also launched a toll-free number for people to lend their support to the Act, which is intended to give citizenship to the persecuted minorities of the three neighbouring countries and not take away citizenship of any Indian citizen.

Reiterating the Modi government’s stand on the CAA, Mr Shah, while addressing a rally in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, said, “Even if all these parties come together, BJP will not move back even an inch on the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act. You can spread as much misinformation as you want.”

The ruling BJP also reminded the Congress that even Mahatma Gandhi pre-empted that non-Muslims who decided to stay in Pakistan could come to India. The BJP claimed that even the Congress had endorsed this in one of its national meets post-Independence and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too, had backed it.

BJP national general secretary Anil Jain, who briefed the media about the party’s campaign in support of the CAA, said that Indian Muslims have no reason to worry about the exercise, be it the NPR (National Population Register) or the NRC, and asserted that India’s only religion is its Constitution. On the NRC issue, the BJP leader said that a nation-wide consultation will be held whenever a decision on rolling out the NRC, which is part of the party’s manifesto, is taken, but noted that there is no such proposal now. “The Congress and other parties are spreading lies and creating unrest in the name of the CAA for political gains,” said the leader.