All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday said that he would approach the Supreme Court once again, and seek directions against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Speaking to mediaperspns at AIMIM headquarters in Darussalam in Hyderabad, Mr .Owaisi, who represents Hyderabad in the Lok Sabha, described the CAA as discriminatory and unconstitutional. He said that the people of Hyderabad and Seemanchal, a region in Bihar, where his party is slated to fight polls, would vote against the CAA.
“We had filed a case in the Supreme Court. Our lawyer Nizam Pasha had sought a stay and the government responded that rules had not been framed. Now that rules have been made, we will go back to the Supreme Court and raise the issue,” he said, even as he added that the CAA announcement was made keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in mind.
Mr.Owaisi sought to underscore time and again that the CAA cannot be looked at in isolation. The CAA, he said, is a combination of the National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Bharatiya Janata Party’s intention is to introduce the NPR and NRC across the country.
The AIMIM president cited the example of the Supreme Court-monitored NRC in Assam where about 19 lakh names were not on the citizenship list, a vast majority of which included Hindus. He recalled how Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Hindus would get citizenship and sought to know the fate of Muslims in that State. “What of the one and half lakh Muslims? Will they have to go to foreigner tribunals? Is this justice,” he sought to know.
The AIMIM president said the CAA, NRC-NPR combine is intended to render Muslims stateless in their own country.
Mr.Owaisi hoped that Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy would continue to implement the Assembly resolution of the previous government led by Bharat Rashtra Samithi against the NRC and NPR.
