Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said on Saturday that the state Assembly will soon pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act, The News Minute reported. The Punjab, Kerala and Rajasthan legislatures have already passed such resolutions. All four states are ruled by non-Bharatiya Janata Party governments.
Rao’s remark came after his party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, won a comfortable majority in the state municipal elections. The party won in more than 100 out of 120 municipalities and 7 of 9 municipal corporations.
“As we are a secular party, we oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill [Act]” Rao said in the Assembly. He added that a resolution will soon be introduced in the Assembly against the Act. Rao said he has spoken to chief ministers of 15 other states and to regional parties, and plans to host a gathering of chief ministers in Hyderabad in February.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act. He asked the Supreme Court to take suo motu action and strike down the Act. The top court is currently hearing a batch of petitions against the citizenship law.
The Citizenship Amendment Act provides citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, provided they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014. The Act has been widely criticised for excluding Muslims. Twenty-six people died in last month’s protests against the law – all in the BJP-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam.
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