India's "tryst with bigotry" was confirmed when the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill cleared Lok Sabha last night, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said this afternoon as she launched a scathing attack on the centre. The Citizenship Amendment Bill was cleared by the Lok Sabha around midnight on Monday after nearly seven hours of heated discussions, with 311 voting in support of the legislation and 80 against it.
Hitting out at the centre over the controversial legislation that was passed amid vehement opposition, the 47-year-old tweeted: "Last night at midnight, India's tryst with bigotry and narrow minded exclusion was confirmed as the CAB was passed in the Lok Sabha. Our forefathers gave their lifeblood for our freedom. In that freedom, is enshrined the right to equality, and the right to freedom of religions."
"Our constitution, our citizenship, our dreams of a strong and unified India belong to ALL of us. We will fight against this government's agenda to systematically destroy our constitution and undo the fundamental premise on which our country was built with all our might (sic)," she further wrote.
Her tweet attack was inspired by "Tryst of Destiny", the speech delivered by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of country's independence. "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom," Jawaharlal Nehru, Priyanka Gandhi's great-grandfather, had said while addressing the Indian Constituent Assembly in the parliament in 1947. The speech is believed to be among the greatest in the 20th century
Rahul Gandhi, her brother, has also criticised the government over the passage of bill, calling it an "attack on the Indian constitution". "The #CAB is an attack on the Indian constitution. Anyone who supports it is attacking and attempting to destroy the foundation of our nation," Mr Gandhi tweeted.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to amend a six-decade-old law makes it easier for non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to become Indian citizens. The Congress, among other opposition parties, has been vehement in its opposition to the legislation and has called the bill "discriminatory".
On Monday, amid criticism, Union Home Minister Amit Shah rejected claims that the bill violates the constitution's core principles of equality, saying it was not even "0.001% against India's minorities". He also questioned the Congress' right to describe the bill as discriminatory when it is the very party that "divided India on the grounds of religion" during the 1947 partition.
The legislation has also triggered protests in Northeast where the locals have claimed that it is an "attempt to rob the Northeast of its identity".
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