'Come forward to debate on CAA-NRC-NPR': Sibal challenges Shah

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Tuesday challenged Union Home Minister Amit Shah and asked the former BJP chief to come forward to debate with him on the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National population Register.

"The Home Minister has said that Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee should debate with him on NRC-CAA-NPR issue. I challenge him to come forward and debate with me. Truth and lies will appear in front of everyone," said Sibal addressing a press conference at the AICC Headquarters here.

Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah have spoken several lies about the CAA, the Congress leader said: "The first lie was that CAA is impartial. When the law was made in 1950 then it was clearly mentioned how citizenship will be given to anyone who was born here. Anyone who has lived here for 11 years will get citizenship whether Hindu, Sikh, Christian or Muslim."

"Citizenship was supposed to be obtained on the basis of 5 criteria and religion has nothing to do with it. There was no mention of religion," he said.

Sibal questioned Centre as Shah said that the CAA has no connection with the NRC.

"Shah himself had said in April 2019, Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) will come, followed by NRC. However, Modi in a rally said that since his government came, there was no discussion on NRC, but the President mentioned about NRC in his address, if the government did not discuss it then how it could come in the President's address?" he asked.

He said government's other lies were that "NRC was not notified in the past and it is yet to be started."

"Kiren Rijiju said in July 2019 that gazette notification had been made that NPR would be implemented from April 1," he said.

"The another lie was NPR and NRC have nothing to do with each other, but the Ministry of Home Affairs clearly said that the first step of NPR will be NRC," Sibal added.

Claiming that the CAA is against minorities and poor, the former Union Minister said: "No Indian needs to worry about this, the name of the family of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (5th president of India) is not in the NRC, the name of the Kargil war jawan is out of the NRC. If it is their condition then what will happen to the poor?"

"These people are targetting poor Hindus in Uttar Pradesh, who do not have papers. They will give them citizenship and then say we have done it," he said.

Cornering the Centre on detention centres meant for illegal immigrants, he said: "The government has lied to us that no detention centre is being built in the country. Places for the detention centres have been allocated in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Still, the Prime Minister is lying."

"They said no force was used on the anti-CAA protestors, but only in Uttar Pradesh several people were killed," he said.

Protests broke out in different parts of the country against the CAA which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghstan and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

( With inputs from ANI )