K Chandrasekhar Rao joins league of anti-CAA CMs

Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao joined the league of non-BJP chief ministers in the country, making his opposition to the implementation of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act public.

On Saturday, KCR, as Rao is popular, said that his government would move a “resolution in the state assembly to oppose the discriminatory law.”

KCR’s statements come on a day Rajasthan, ruled by the Congress, passed a resolution asking the Narendra Modi government to revoke the CAA. Such resolutions were earlier passed by two other non-BJP states – Kerala and Punjab. In West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee government is reportedly moving such a resolution next week.

KCR who said he spoke to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and others over the matter said he intends to convene a conclave of CMs soon in Hyderabad on this issue, to discuss their plan of action.

"We supported Article 370 abrogation in national interest but I told home minister Amit Shah that we, an out and out secular party, cannot support a prejudiced law,” Rao told reporters, after TRS party’s victory in the state’s municipal polls.

The TRS had voted against the CAB in Parliament.

“By conviction, we do not support CAA, which is 100 percent a wrong law, a wrong thinking on part of the central government. I appeal to the Prime Minister Modi to rethink on CAA,” Rao said adding – “It is a law the courts should strike off.”

“Are Muslims not our people, why discriminate? Why cannot we live together,” questioned KCR, terming the CAA, NRC as diversional tactics of the BJP from burning issues. “Economy is struggling; millions have lost their jobs.”

Flanked by his son Telangana’s IT, industries minister K T Rama Rao, who returned from the World Economic Forum meet at Davos, KCR cited the remarks of US investor George Soros, which were censorial of Modi government “nationalist” policies.

“Such acts are not good for the country and its image abroad. Lakhs of Indians work in the Gulf; what if the authorities there ask us get out?” Rao said.

While Modi government has stated its unrelenting position on CAA, two Congress leaders and former union ministers – Shashi Tharoor and Kapil Sibal – opined that the states’ resolutions and opposition as inconsequential in the matter.

“It is more of a political gesture. Citizenship is conferred by the central government. States cannot say they would not implement CAA,” Tharoor reportedly said.