Citizenship Act Already in Force, Mandatory for All Non-BJP States to Implement it: Narendra Singh Tomar

Bhopal: Two days after Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath announced that he would not implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the new law is a constitutional amendment which is already in force, regardless of political statements.

Tomar, who was in the state capital on Friday, told News18 that since both houses of the Parliament have cleared the Act and the President of India has given his nod, the law has come into force.

“I urged all the chief ministers to implement this law to ensure justice to the suffering humanity,” Tomar said, adding that nobody, be it Kamal Nath or he himself, is above the constitution.

Squarely blaming the Congress and leftist parties for the recent violence during anti-CAA protests, the visiting union minister accused the Congress leaders of attempting to fuel anarchy in the country.

Tomar said the BJP in its election manifesto had promised to introduce Citizenship Act and offer citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis facing persecution in Pakistan. The public had elected Narendra Modi the Prime Minister on the basis of BJP’s election manifesto, he claimed.

Insisting that NRC and NPR are different, Tomar claimed that Congress needs to differentiate between infiltrators and refugees. Claiming that NPR happens once every decade, Tomar alleged that even the Manmohan Singh government had held this in 2000 and 2010 and now the Congress is misleading the country. The cabinet has only approved the budget for the same, he argued.

“If Congress party has objections to NPR, there can’t be any bigger mental bankruptcy that this,” the BJP leader said, warning the grand old party of refraining from misleading the country or be ready to face the consequences in future.

Backing Army Chief Bipin Rawat for his statement that “leaders are not those who lead people in inappropriate directions”, Tomar said Rawat had voiced his opinion candidly as a citizen. “He has said an ideal thing, why did it not go down well with Digvijaya Singh? Tomar said.