Chennai: Describing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as a piece of legislation that went against the Constitution and agitated against the country’s plurality and secularism, Chief Minister M K Stalin made it clear that it would not be implemented in the State come what may and accused the Union Government of hurriedly notifying the rules in the last days of its present tenure.
Recalling the DMK government passing a resolution in the Assembly seeking the withdrawal of the CAA on September 8, 2021, soon after it came to power, Stalin, in a statement on Tuesday, said that the sudden notification was an electoral ploy of the BJP government aimed at diverting the people’s attention and to find relief from the admonition of the Supreme Court.
His government would not allow any law with a potential to cleave society to come into force in the State, Stalin said, adding that the CAA, besides dividing the people, served no purpose and had no use other than creating a rift in society. The needless legislation needed to be cancelled, he said.
When the people of the country stayed united as one nation overcoming differences over language, race, religion and living conditions, the CAA could only be detrimental to their unity, he said, pointing out that many other States had also voiced their views against it.
The implementation of CAA would particularly work against the interests of minorities and the Tamil people residing in the rehabilitation camps of the State, he said.
TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai wondered why the Union Government was notifying it after holding it back for four years and pointed out that the Act that provided for granting citizenship to people belonging to six religions who migrated to India from the neighboring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan due to religious persecution before December, 2014, had not included Muslims in the list.
General Secretary of the DMDK, V Premalatha Vijayakanth, too, came out against the implementation of the CAA, saying that it came as a shock to the people. In a statement, she urged the Union Government to come out with a White Paper explaining the merits and demerits of the Act and clarifying how people would not be affected by it.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami claimed that his party had opposed CAA and that it was the DMK government that supported it in the Assembly in 2010. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a protest his party had organized, Palaniswami said the AIADMK would not accept the implementation of CAA if it would be detrimental to the interest of minorities and Sri Lankan Tamils living in the State.
The State president of BJP, K Annamalai, criticized the Chief Minister for his stand on the CAA and said that he had no power or right to stop its implementation in the State. He told reporters at the party headquarters that the Chief Minister had no understanding of the law and added that no one would be affected by it.
Meanwhile, a group of Muslims from Kolathur constituency who met the Chief Minister at his camp office to receive gift hampers distributed as part of a scheme to provide assistance to those fasting in the month of Ramzan, too thanked the Chief Minister for taking a tough stand against the implementation of CAA.
