P Chidambaram said the 'Home Minister seeks votes to ‘get rid of Shaheen Bagh’.' (Photo Credit: PTI/File)
New Delhi :
Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram has slammed Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his alleged remarks against Shaheen Bagh protesters who are opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying only those who despise Mahatma Gandhi would want to ‘get rid of Shaheen Bagh’. Coming down hard on the Home Minister’s remarks, the Congress leaders said, “Home Minister seeks votes to ‘get rid of Shaheen Bagh’.”
“Only those who despise Gandhiji would want to get rid of Shaheen Bagh. Shaheen Bagh represents the essence of Mahatma Gandhi,” Chidambaram said in a series of tweets. “Getting rid of Shaheen Bagh amounts to getting rid of Ahimsa and Satyagraha,” he added.
Shah, while asking voters of Delhi to press the BJP’s lotus symbol on February 8, had reportedly said that there should be ‘no Shaheen Bagh. “Your vote to BJP candidate will make Delhi and the country safe and prevent thousands of incidents like Shaheen Bagh,” Shah was quoted as saying by PTI.
“When you press the button (of EVM) on February 8, do so with such anger that its current is felt at Shaheen Bagh,” he said.
Protesters opposing the amended Citizenship Act and a proposed pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC), are holding a sit-in at Shaheen Bagh for over a month now. The agitators said they will continue their agitation until the government decides to rollback the contentious law and scrap any NRC.
Earlier, Chidambaram asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi as to why he or his government did not accept his suggestion of the PM holding an open debate with five critics of the amended Citizenship Act and let people draw their own conclusion.
"I had suggested that the PM should select five of the most articulate critics and hold a Q&A session with them. Why doesn't the PM/Government accept the suggestion?”
“Let five critics of CAA-NPR debate the PM. Let the event be televised live. And let the people draw their own conclusions," he said on Twitter.
In another tweet, he said, "HM (home minister) has dared the Opposition to debate CAA. Is that not what the Opposition, jurists, academics, writers, artists, students and youth have been doing since Dec 12?"
