Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was against the spirit of the Constitution and the people of the country wouldn’t accept it.
“Will you (the government) ask for documents from the poor and the labourers who are working in a city? Will you ask them to show evidence, a telephone bill? Where will they bring these things from?” she asked at a media conference here.
Priyanka, who wrapped up her three-day visit to Lucknow, meeting party workers and families of many protesters arrested for opposing the controversial legislation, said the act went “against the spirit of the Constitution” and all Congress-ruled states had refused to implement it.
Priyanka slammed the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh for cracking down on protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens and said a delegation of Congress leaders that met governor Anandiben Patel on Monday had handed her a letter of demands.
The delegation sought immediate instructions to the home department and the state’s director-general of police to stop “violent, illegal and criminal activities of the police and the government against the protesters”.
Another demand was an investigation into cases of protest-related violence under a sitting or a retired high court judge. Priyanka said it was clear from video footage that the police were involved in the violence.
“We have also demanded an immediate brake on the process of sealing or confiscating properties of people in the name of compensation for damages during protests,” she said.
Priyanka said many students had been arrested in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, while they were opposing the act and the governor must intervene to expunge cases against “those who are innocent”.
Priyanka mentioned Bijnore and Kanpur where youths have been killed in firing and blamed the deaths on the police and the local administration.
“Either they were killed by the police or killed in front of the police. In both cases, the police should be held responsible,” she said.
The Congress leader also spoke of the arrests of S.R. Darapuri, a retired police officer, and Sadaf Jafar, a social worker in Lucknow, because one had opposed the CAA in a Facebook post and the other had recorded the violence during a protest on December 19 even as police stood watching.
Priyanka said chief minister Adityanath’s statement on December 19 that he would take “revenge” on the protesters by confiscating their properties was unbecoming of a person who wore saffron.
Asked about the alleged security lapse during her Lucknow visit on Saturday, when a policewoman had allegedly manhandled her when she was heading towards Darapuri’s house, Priyanka said: “There are bigger issues in the state than my security and we need to focus on them.” “As far as the fine imposed on the owner of the scooty is concerned, we will pay it,” she added.
Lucknow police had slapped a fine of Rs 6,100 on Dheeraj Gurjar, a former MLA from Rajasthan, for riding a scooty without wearing a helmet and jumping a traffic signal.
Priyanka rode pillion on the two-wheeler, owned by Rajdeep Singh, a resident of Gomti Nagar in Lucknow, after police stopped her car on its way to Darapuri’s house. The police sent a notice regarding the fine to Singh too.
