Congress' senior leader Kapil Sibal
Amid nationwide outrage and polarisation of views over the Citizenship act, Congress' senior leader Kapil Sibal on Saturday stated that no state can deny implementing Citizenship Amendment Act after it was passed in parliament and got signed by the president of India. Adding to that, Sibal said that denying the implementation by states would be unconstitutional.
On the sidelines of the Kerala literature festival in Kozhikode, Kerala, the former union minister said, "When you come to national politics, I think we all must stand together because this is national legislation. So, we should not be scoring political points. You must know that if the CAA is passed, no state can say 'I will not implement it'. That's not possible. That is unconstitutional. You can oppose it. You can pass a resolution in the Assembly and ask the central government to withdraw it (to say please withdraw it),"
"But constitutionally to say that I will not implement it is going to be problematic and it is going to create more difficulty. So, what we need to do is politically get together, fight this battle and let the Congress party nationally lead the charge," he added.
Earlier this week, the Kerala government moved the court against the amended CAA, seeking to declare it “violative of the principles of equality, freedom, and secularism enshrined in the Constitution”.
Apart from Kerala, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution against the Citizenship act. The state government said that it would approach the Supreme Court on the issue of CAA.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Maharashtra have voiced their dissent with the law and have said that they will not implement it.
CAA grants citizenship to the non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.
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