Thrissur: Tamil Nadu’s DMK government will never allow implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said Wednesday, days after Union Minister Shantanu Thakur said the law would be implemented across the country within a week.
Stalin slammed the BJP for “destroying the nation’s communal harmony” and accused state opposition AIADMK of supporting this.
He added, “A Union minister has said that CAA will be implemented across India in seven days. We will not let CAA take root in Tamil Nadu. People are watching the subversive activities of the BJP government against communal harmony and the insidious drama of the AIADMK that goes along with it.”
BJP MP from West Bengal’s Bangaon Shantanu Thakur had said Sunday that the CAA was not far behind now that the Ram temple in Ayodhya had been inaugurated. “CAA will be implemented across the country in the next seven days. This is my guarantee,” he said at a rally in South 24 Parganas.
In a statement posted on X Wednesday, Stalin said the AIADMK was in power in Tamil Nadu when the bill was passed in Parliament in 2019 and had supported it. Incidentally, there were widespread protests against the party.
Stalin added they had passed a resolution in the Assembly demanding the withdrawal of the law immediately after coming to power in 2021.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 seeks to ease the citizenship process for the persecuted minorities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians – who arrived in India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan by 31 December 2014.
The law does not include Muslims from these nations or persecuted minorities from other nations, including Tamils from Sri Lanka, which sparked condemnation in the southern state. The state had also witnessed widespread protests against the legislation, which were led by activists and DMK leaders such as MP Kanimozhi and its youth wing leader Udhayanidhi Stalin.
The party also raised the matter during the 2021 Assembly election. Months after winning the polls, the DMK passed a unanimous resolution against the Act in September. The resolution said the Act was against the secular principles of the Constitution and urged the Centre to repeal it. Apart from Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Rajasthan and Punjab also adopted resolutions against CAA.
Notably, in December 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said no one could stop the implementation of the law.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: CAA to be implemented ‘much before Lok Sabha polls, rules have been framed’