THESE were the emphatic remarks of Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M) in a press conference held on December 16 at Delhi. He said that the Party has given final shape to the petition challenging the Constitutional Amendment Act(CAA), which was passed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the recent parliament session, despite strong opposition from the people and some of the political parties. He said the CAA has already been challenged in the SC by various groups and the CPI(M) will place its views, which deduce from the Constitution of India.

Strongly criticising the BJP for bringing in the amendment, Yechury said that it is both unconstitutional and anti-constitutional as it violates the basic spirit of the Constitution. The basic spirit of the Indian Constitution is integrity and secularism, which does not distinguish the Indian citizens on the basis of the religion they profess. However, he said, the present CAA is ultra vires to this spirit and is based on religious partisanship. Sitaram Yechury said, the CAA is inherently flawed as it is a bundle of contradictions. It states that those who have entered the country(India) till December 2014 and only from three countries i.e., Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afganistan shall be granted citizenship; but ‘those’ is qualified here. It deliberately excludes the Muslims and this smacks of deep-rooted conspiracy to create a binary between the Hindus and Muslims in the country, he said.

Yechury also pointed out that the CAA violates the Assam accord where the cut off date for granting citizenship is March 24, 1971. Hence, he said, it is contradictory. Sitaram further indicted the central government for being extremely selective and targeted it for not applying the same yardstick to the Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka. Hence, he said, the CAA is anti-constitution and unconstitutional.

Sitaram clarified that the major reason for passing this amendment is to further sharpen the binary between the Hindus and Muslims and enhance communal polarisation in the country. This is all the more unambiguously clear from the recent remarks of Modi at an election rally in Jharkhand where he said that the protesters can be identified from their clothes. Typical of RSS vocabulary, these remarks are to target the Muslims and simultaneously appeal to the Hindus that the only section that is having problems with the CAA are the Muslims. Sitaram Yechury said this does not behold of a prime minister to stoop so low in his speech. Yechury said this binary is deliberately being created by the BJP and its propaganda machinery. This will be strongly challenged and a counter narrative shall be built in the country by mobilising the people and other sections of the society to ensure that the real threat of CAA is brought to the fore.

Yechury said, what is being propagated by the BJP that it will not affect the people residing in the country, is utterly untrue. He said both the home minister and the prime minister have several times proclaimed that the CAA will be followed by the NRC. So, this amendment must be seen as a prelude to the NRC. It is through the NRC that the so called ‘cleansing’ will be done by the BJP in the country and in Amit Shah’s words, “the termites will be thrown out”. The target shall not just be Muslims but even adivasis, and various other sections of Dalits, nomads and women- amongst whom a large number do not have title of land in their names. It will be a chaos that the BJP wants to create in the country.

Severely targeting the BJP for stating that those who are protesting against the CAA are not patriotic, rather anti-national, he said, patriotism is to defend the Indian Constitution and right now the protests are against the constitutional amendment enacted with the tyranny of majority in the parliament. Hence, to protest in contemporary times and on the CAA is patriotic, rather the charge is on the BJP who are bent on tearing the fabric of the constitution apart and thus(BJP) are both anti-national and non -patriotic to the interests of India.

Speaking on the situation in the country especially in the North East, he unequivocally condemned the central government for snapping the internet in Assam, Tripura. He said under the BJP rule the longest period of internet connectivity being snapped in Jammu and Kashmir and now in the north east was done and this shows its sheer desperation.

He strongly demanded that the CAA may be repealed and internet services should be restored in the country including Jammu and Kashmir immediately. He asked the respective governments of the state’s to immediately release the agitators who have been kept behind the bars. Sitaram Yechury raised the demand of a compensation of Rs 20 lakh to the family of those killed in police firing in the recent agitation against CAA in the country. The army should be withdrawn from Assam and other north-eastern states at the earliest, he demanded.

Earlier in the day, Sitaram Yechury, Gulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibbal from Congress, D Raja from CPI, Manoj Jha from RJD,  Sharad Yadav from LoktantrikJanta Dal and Javed Ali Khan from the SP jointly held a press conference in the Constitution Club, Delhi against police firing and entry of police in the Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi. The speakers castigated at the central government, for allowing the police to enter the JMIU without the permission of the university authorities and brutally beat the students in library and hotels. The speakers said that the male policemen entered the library broke its door and other furniture and badly beat students there. They even entered misbehaved with the girl students there.  A large number of students were injured in the attack of the police. They said that the manner in which the students were asked to come out of their hostels and the library with their hands raised showed as if the police had captured some terrorist destination. They ridiculed the central government for polarising the atmosphere on communal lines and said that they shall meet the President of India and ask for his intervention to dissuade the police from such dastardly acts.