Cong, Owaisi misleading Muslims over citizenship: BJP

The BJP accused the Congress and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday of "misleading" Muslims over a host of issues related to citizenship, with its spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain asking the members of the minority community not to fall into the trap of opposition parties.

"Muslims should not fall into their trap. Once M A Jinnah misled them with the two-nation theory. The Congress is now misleading them over issues like the National Population Register, detention centres and the National Register of Citizens.... Owaisi is working as the B team of the Congress. Muslims should not let these parties use them for their divisive politics," Hussain said.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader noted that the NPR exercise was first carried out under the Congress-led UPA rule in 2010.

The Congress had then spoken about the need for something like the NRC, while the current BJP-led government had categorically stated that the NPR had no links with the citizenship register, he said.

After being rejected by people in the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had resorted to this "divisive politics", Hussain said.

At a press conference, BJP's "kisan morcha" chief Virendra Singh Mast alleged that the Congress was using the language of Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

He also claimed that the opposition party was projecting the BJP as a party of Hindus in the same way Jinnah used to describe the Congress before independence.

Asked which Congress leaders had said so, Mast said he was not aware as to who had made such a statement but this was what they had been saying.