Kozhikode, Jan 19 (IANS): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah can defuse the protests over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act if they wish, but do not have any such intentions.

At the last day of the four-day Kerala Literature Festival here, Tharoor said: "Protests can be defused if Narendra Modi & Amit Shah say 'We are dropping idea of NRC', that they will no longer ask NPR enumeration & go to every door asking - 'Where your father & mother were born' and ask for documentary proof."

However, both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister are not ready to give such assurances, he added.

Congress on CAA:

Terming the new citizenship law (CAA) an attack on the Constitution, Congress media department head Randeep Singh Surjewala said, "The movement against the CAA shall continue courageously & fearlessly."

Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, Surjewala said they had become living symbols of sectarianism, bigotry & fanaticism and were "using the state to attack the country's ethos and Constitution."

The government, he said was using the CAA as an instrument to divide and rule and to hide their failure on the economic and jobs front. "The time has come to expose the conspiracy of lies and deceit of the rulers against people," Surjewala said.

The Congress was for citizenship of India to all Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, Muslims and all others, irrespective of nationality, country of origin, place of residence, ethnicity or religion, he said.