The Punjab government led by Captain Amarinder Singh opposes the CAA
The Punjab government will go by the will of the state assembly on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR), it said in a statement on Tuesday. This was decided by ministers of the state government during a discussion after a cabinet meeting, the statement said.
"The ministers also expressed concern over the implications of the blatantly unconstitutional and divisive CAA, NRC and NPR," it said, adding that also expressed alarm over the violence erupted across the country, which "threatened to rip apart the secular fabric of the nation".
"The ministers were of the view that the matter was bound to be raised during the two-day session of the assembly on January 16-17 and it was unanimously decided that the government should accept the will of the House," the statement said.
The cabinet agreed with Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh's views that the CAA, especially when coupled with the NRC and the NPR, violated the preamble to the Constitution.
Punjab's Advocate General Atul Nanda gave a legal perspective on the matter before the ministers.
The Chief Minister has said his government would not allow the "brazenly divisive CAA Act" to be implemented in his state. He had said the Congress government was not against granting citizenship to minorities persecuted on the basis of religion, but it was opposed to the "discrimination in the CAA against certain religious communities, including Muslims".
The Kerala assembly recently passed a resolution demanding scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act for the first time makes religion the test of citizenship in India. The government says it will help minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries to get citizenship if they fled to India before 2015 because of religious persecution. Critics say it is designed to discriminate against Muslims and violates the secular principles of the constitution.