No need to be defensive on CAA: PM Modi to allies

The alliance government of BJP headed by JDU’s Nitish Kumar has already announced the roll-out of the NPR exercise in the state

In the backdrop of various NDA allies earlier having expressed discomfiture over anti-CAA protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a strategy meeting of the ruling alliance in Friday and asked the coalition partners to go the whole hog in rebutting the Opposition charge that the law discriminates against Muslims.

In the meeting happening on a day the Budget Session of Parliament began, Modi is learnt to have categorically told NDA allies to take the message that the present government caters to minority interests in the same manner as other governments have done and Muslims have similar rights in this dispensation.

At the strategy meet, the Prime Minister is learnt to have told the allies that the ruling dispensation has “no reason to be defensive on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)” and put the blame for the on-going nation-wide protests over the law on the Opposition, which he accused of spreading confusion on the matter.

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, whose party LJP had earlier rued that its demand to take all allies on board before the decision on CAA was not heeded. On Friday he said that the Prime Minister conveyed at the meeting that Muslims have as much rights as others have in the country rejected the opposition's charge against the government over the CAA.

In a press statement, LJP said on Friday that leaders of all parities “unanimously congratulated” the government for passage of CAA as well as removal of Atricle 370 and 35A in Jammu and Kashmir.

A number of NDA allies, who had supported the passage of CAA, had last month recalibrated their position with Akali Dal demanding the inclusion of Muslims in CAA and LJP flagging that the government “failed” in containing anti-CAA protests. JDU, which had backed the law in Parliament, had also shown signs of a re-thinking.

The one and half hour NDA meeting on Friday, however, was a show of solidarity of the allies as the Budget session began. The meet passed a resolution applauding the Prime Minister for initiatives including CAA and the opening of Kartarpur corridor in Pakistan for Sikhs.

We are neither front foot or on back foot on CAA. We are on our foot on CAA. NDA is united and stands behind the Prime Minister like a rock,” said Paswan allaying apprhensions on CAA and NPR.

In the meeting, another NDA ally JDU, which had voted in faovour of CAA but strongly disapproved any plan to have nationwide NRC, urged the government to remove questions seeking details of parents in the National Population Register (NPR) questionnaire.