TRS holds no moral right to teach us religious parity, says Piyush Goyal

The Narendra Modi government does not need lessons on religious parity from “a government trying to implement religion-based reservations,” said railways minister Piyush Goyal.

Reacting to the Sunday decision of the Telangana cabinet to get an assembly resolution passed against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the union minister has accused Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as “indulging in petty politics and spreading misinformation/doubts over CAA, instructed by AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi.”

Goyal was in Hyderabad on Tuesday to inaugurate few railway projects like a satellite terminal station at Cherlapalli near Hyderabad.

“It (TRS government) does not hold any moral right to teach us how to treat people of all religions equally,” Goyal said in reference to Rao government’s earlier proposal of 12 percent reservation for socially and economically backward Muslims in the state.

A bill to this extent was passed by the Telangana assembly in April 2017 and was sent to the Centre for its nod. However, the union government has reportedly refused to clear the bill stating that the Indian constitution does not provide for religion-based reservations.

Urging the government to retract its anti-CAA resolution move, Goyal accused TRS and AIMIM of segregating Telangana on religious grounds.

“CAA doesn’t not snatch anything from anyone. But unfortunately, KCR’s government is indulging in petty politicisation and appeasement of minorities only under the pressure possibly of Owaisi. Unfortunately, the Telangana government has been reduced to acting on the instructions of Owaisi who indulges in religious politics; all the time trying to divide the Indian society on religious grounds,” Goyal said at a press conference.

“I feel sorry that when the centre is continuously providing support for Telangana’s faster growth, the state cabinet meets and decides to ask the union government to abrogate CAA,” Goyal, flanked by union home minister of state Kishan Reddy and Telangana BJP chief Dr K Laxman, said.

The minister commented that persecuted religious minorities like Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have nowhere else to go.

“Because of the religious persecution the minorities in Pakistan are reduced from 23 percent in 1952 to barely three percent. They would have been either killed, converted to Islam or they have run away to India,” the minister said adding that it is the “duty of all Indians to provide them shelter, citizenship in India.