A file photo of Prashant Kishor
Political strategist and Janata Dal (United) parliamentarian Prashant Kishore has advised the Congress leadership to get all its CMs to hit the streets and join the citizenship law protests across the country. The Rajya Sabha MP made a critical observation about the party leadership, stating that it had so far been “largely absent” in the ongoing demonstrations.
“Congress is not on streets and its top leadership has been largely absent in the citizens’ fight against CAA-NRC,” Kishore commented on Twitter on Saturday, while retweeting last evening’s video appeal of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
“The least party could do it to make ALL Congress CMs join other CMs who have said that they will not allow NRC in their states. Or else these statements mean nothing,” he said.
The significant remarks come a day after Sonia hit out at Centre for cracking down on protestors demanding a roll back of the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Law. In scathing remarks directed at the government, Sonia noted that “brute force” was being employed to crack down on the protests.
"In a democracy people have the right to raise their voice against wrong decisions and policies of the government and register their concerns. The BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government has shown utter disregard for people's voices and chosen to use brute force to suppress dissent," she said.
She further remarked that Congress would stand with the protestors in their fight against the Act.
"The Congress will defend people's fundamental rights and uphold the values of India's Constitution,” she said.
After Sonia’s video message that was broadcasted on major TV channels, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi joined the protestors at India Gate in the evening. It is believed that in a major strategy shift, Congress has decided to take a lead in the ongoing protests across different states.
