Centre will make changes to CAA if citizens are affected: G Kishan Reddy

Hyderabad: If the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) adversely affects any one of the 130 crore Indians, the Centre will make changes, said minister of state for home affair G. Kishan Reddy.

Participating in a ‘Meet the Press’ programme organised by the Telangana Union of Working Journalists in the city, Reddy said, the Centre had enacted the CAA “with full responsibility as a special drive to provide citizen status to refugees from the neighbourhood who had faced religious persecution.”

Replying a question with regard to the massive protests across the nation and even in BJP-ruled states, he said that the Centre had not expected such a “vicious false propaganda against the CAA.”

He reiterated that Muslim citizens had no ground to fear. He assured that even in the Census operations about to commence for the National Population Register (NPR), no document need be shown. He urged Muslims not to believe “wrong stories being circulated on social media.”

Reddy said, “there is no need to furnish any birth certificate. This is my assurance as Union minister. Ultimately, the people of the country would decide who is right.”

He made it clear that although the BJP did mention the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in its manifesto, the Centre had not taken it up and there has been no discussion in the Union Cabinet. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the final word on the NRC, it does not matter what anyone else has said,” he said.

Reddy stated that the Centre was still framing rules and regulations for the CAA, and it does not have any precise figure on the number of refugees.

He made it clear that the Centre had taken note of the apprehensions in some states about the CAA, including those in the Northeast. The Centre’s intent is not to bulldoze them into accepting it, the minister said.

He said the Centre would engage in talks with various state governments which have been opposing the implementation of the CAA in their states.