New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday told a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting "not to be under any illusion that the National Population Register (NPR) is a benign exercise since in form and content, NPR 2020 is a disguised NRC."
She said the government had thought that the NRC (National Register of Citizens) exercise could be carried out throughout the country but it hit upon the idea of NPC after the disastrous results of the Assam NRC.
The Congress President said the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was a discriminatory and divisive law with the sinister move to divide Indian citizens on religious lines and so she was happy the way thousands of youngsters, especially students, came out in protest throughout the country, realising the grave harm the CAA would cause.
"I salute their courage, their abiding faith in the value of the Constitution, and their determination to defend and protect those values. We are inspired by their struggle," she said, affirming that the Congress workers will stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their cause.
Sonia also referred to the police brutalities on the agitating students in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and many other places and demanded a comprehensive high-powered Commission to probe the incidents connected with the anti-CAA protests to provide justice to the affected.
She targeted Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah over the citizenship laws, accusing them of making "provocative remarks" on the subject.
Regretting that the government was digging in its heels as the student protest gained momentum, she said: "Not a day passed by without the Home Minister, and on some days the Prime Minister himself, making provocative statements.”
Sonia also spoke on the economy downslide causing untold miseries to practically all sections of society, people of Jammu and Kashmir continue to be denied fundamental rights, with even former chief ministers and senior leaders of mainstream parties continuing to be in detention, and the shocking development in the Gulf with the outbreak of hostilities between the US and Iran."
