BJP widens campaign to counter anti-CAA drive in UP

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh is widening the scope of its ongoing campaign to allay apprehensions about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The party will now meet protesters and their families and discuss the issue with them.

This comes even as the Yogi Adityanath government continues its crackdown on protesters and initiates the process of confiscating their properties in lieu of damages done to public property.

The party has asked booth and sector level functionaries to identify those engaged in protests and meet them.

UP BJP general secretary and in-charge of west UP, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, said the party's campaign will now reach out to those driven by the political agenda of the opposition.

"We need to tell them the law is about giving citizenship and not taking it away. There is nothing in it that would harm any particular community," he said.

The BJP will be reaching out to 50,000 villages across the state.

The cadre will speak to these people at the booth and sector level and explain the finer points of the amended citizenship law.

The BJP's overdrive is seen as a damage-control exercise and an attempt to counter the opposition's campaign on the citizenship law being anti-Muslim and against the Constitution.

The Congress leadership, in fact, has been vociferous in its stand, saying the law is in conflict with Article 21 of the Constitution that guarantees equality.

Protests on the issue have turned violent in Uttar Pradesh, claiming 18 lives. The state police have arrested 1100 protesters and made over 5,500 preventive arrests.

Internet was shut down for almost a week in 21 districts in the state.

( With inputs from IANS )