New Delhi, Feb 6 (IANS): Hitting out at Pakistan as well as opposition parties for misleading Muslims on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the Act will not harm "any Indian" as well as the "minority" and instigating such protests could lead to "anarchy".
Addressing the Lok Sabha while speaking on the motion of thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint session of Parliament on January 31, day one of the Budget session, Modi rejected allegations of various political parties that the current government led by BJP wanted to make India a Hindu nation.
The Prime Minister said Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, had also used "Pakistan's minority" word and in November 9, 1950, he had said that who had come to India should be given citizenship and if needed there should be changes in the law. "Did Nehru want to make India a Hindu Nation?"
"This Act will not harm any Indian citizens. It will not harm any minority," Modi said in his over 100-minute speech.
The Prime Minister said that it is just "vote bank politics" and asked if Congress has forgotten the 1984 Sikh riots when "our Sikh brothers and sisters were set ablaze". "Did they not belong to a minority community? Why did they have to wait for over three decades for getting justice? Why did Congress give chief ministerial post to a person who was involved in Sikh riots? Do they have two different yardsticks for the term minority?"
Hitting out at the Congress, the Prime Minister said it is the "misfortune" of the country that it has found such an opposition which has drifted to a "wrong path".
The Prime Minister said the Congress and its "ecosystem" is creating turmoil on CAA, a legislation which grants citizenship to six-non Muslim minorities - Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Christian and Buddhist which migrated to India on or before December 31, 2014 from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"They (opposition) have used full power to instil an imaginary fear in the minds of people against CAA. Pakistan also speaks the same language. Pakistan played every game to mislead Indian Muslims. But that country's attempts have failed...A Muslim is only a Muslim for the Congress, but we see him as an Indian."
The Prime Minister said that minorities in Pakistan are being harassed since the Partition. However, demonstrations are being instigated in India if "we try to give citizenship rights to those minorities through CAA".