While making it clear that his government will “not budge even an inch” on its decision to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, BJP has lined up a massive door to door public awareness campaign on January 5 in 42 major cities in favour of the Act.
Through the exercise, the BJP plans to reach out to three crore families during the 10-day “Jan Jagaran Abhiyan”. While Home Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah will launch in poll-bound Delhi, party working President J P Nadda and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will do this in crucial Uttar Pradesh, which has Lok Sabha seats.
Announcing the campaign, BJP general secretary Anil Jain stressed that no Indian Muslim can have any threat “from whatever measures come into place, be it NPR or NRC” as the Constitution will take care of their concerns. “India has only one religion which is its Constitution,” he said.
A number of Union Ministers and former Chief Ministers will straddle across the nation to take to people its message on CAA as protests rage against the Act in different parts of the country.
This 10-day support mobilization programme is after the party has already launched programmes ranging from a postcard campaign in the communally sensitive Western Uttar Pradesh to intellectual meetings in nearly 700 districts of the nation on the CAA.
While Shah on Friday addressed a rally in Jodhpur with maximum Hindu migration from Pakistan made it clear that the government is going to budge an inch from implementing the CAA, the party office in Delhi also put in public domain the manifesto of Congress for 2019 Rajasthan Assembly polls in which it made a promise for “all-round development of refugees from Pakistan and resolving their problems ranging from citizenship to rehabilitation” and noted that the majority of them come from the weaker sections.
In the Jan Jagaran Abhiyan launched by the BJP from Sunday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar will join Shah in the public awareness programme in Delhi, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari will connect with people in Nagpur, Piyush Goyal in Mumbai, Sadananda Gowda in Bangalore, Nirmala Sitharaman in Jaipur, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani in Haryana and Narendra Singh Tomar in Madhya Pradesh among others.
The social media campaign to counter the anti CAA protests was launched this week with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday tagging a video of spiritual Guru Jaggi Vasudev supporting CAA.
The leaders quoted many iconic figures to buttress the point that how is CAA good and this was backed by them. BJP’s young MP from Karnataka Tejasvi Surya referred to Mahatma Gandhi and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, at multiple times, having spoken about protecting minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Top BJP leaders through various hashtags including #CAAJanJagran and #IndiaSupportsCAA, are also trying to reach out to people telling how Modi-Shah duo solved the decades-old problem by CAA and is giving “new lease of life in Bharat” to brothers and sisters facing religious persecution in neighbouring countries.
As protests over CAA deepened and more University campuses lend their weight behind it, Government has reached out to calm the frayed tempers, saying it has no problem in talking to those who have concerns but will not engage with politicians fanning it or “tukde tukde gang”.
Clearly the government is making a difference in students’ protest over the issue and protests by political parties. A clear indication of this emerged when BJP spokesperson and party MP GVL. Narasimha Rao on Tuesday, filed a privilege petition before Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, demanding proceedings for contempt Parliament against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after the Kerala assembly passed resolution against CAA calling it 'illegal and unconstitutional'.