‘Congress will oppose Citizenship Amendment Bill’

Guwahati: Refusing to join the ongoing attempt to create consensus on the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Northeast, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh said that the Congress will ‘cent per cent’ oppose the bill, with no ifs and buts.

Asserting that the Modi government was putting its entire thrust on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and CAB only, Mr Ramesh said that it is a diversionary tactic of the BJP to cover up the alarming decline in country’s GDP growth for the last two years.

“The lowest GDP growth rate in seven years was recorded in the last three months. The PM claims that the country’s economy is alright. But, the country is facing a deep economic crisis. This is what the government data says. Unem-ployment is on the rise, growth rate is declining, farmers are suffering, small traders and industries are in an uncertain environment. The economic crisis is real and deep,” Mr Ramesh said.

Coming down heavily on the ruling BJP-led government for allegedly trying to divert the attention of the people from economic slowdown by politicising the citizenship issue, he said that the Congress would play a key role in mobilising like-minded forces to oppose the CAB in Parliament.

Pointing towards BJP’s Assam ally AGP, which is in a dilemma on whether to come out openly against the bill, he said that BJP allies should take a lesson from the Sena, which decided to walk away from the coalition with the party.

The senior Congress leader argued that a controversial matter like the CAB should have gone to a standing committee for deliberation, adding his party will never accept the citizenship bill.