'No Right To Stay In India If…': Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi Amid Anti-CAA Protests

Union Minister of State for MSME Pratap Chandra Sarangi has accused the Congress of spreading disinformation about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA ) and said that those who do not accept India's freedom, unity, and Vande Mataram, have no right to stay in the country. "Those who set the country on fire are not patriots. Those who do not accept India's freedom, unity, Vande Mataram, have no right to stay in the country. They should go wherever they can," Sarangi said.

He also said the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was a way to “atone for the sin of Partition” committed by the Congress. He asserted that amended Citizenship Act should have been passed 70 years ago. The act seeks to give citizenship to non-Muslim minorities when entered India before December 31, 2014 from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

“CAA should have happened 70 years ago. CAA is a way to atone for sin committed by our forefathers, a select few leaders... It is atonement for the sin of Partition. And we should congratulate PM Narendra Modi for this. The Congress committed the sin, and we are atoning,” Sarangi said.

Sarangi Questioned Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

He also said Partition, which took place on a communal basis, was ‘not unavoidable’, and questioned then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for entering into an agreement with people who propounded the two-nation theory.

“The Partition did not take place on any political, economical, geographical, or historical basis. It was done on a communal basis. We never said we cannot live with Muslims. We lived with them for thousands of years,” Sarangi said.

“But who compelled us enter into an agreement with the people who propounded the two-nation theory? Partition was not unavoidable. Who compelled Nehru? The country is nobody’s paternal property. Nobody had the right to divide it,” he added.

Sarangi said the religious division of the country caused crores of Hindus to stay back in Pakistan, and later in Bangladesh when Pakistan itself was broken up (in 1971), but the numbers of Hindus reduced due to “massive religious conversion, rapes, murders, atrocities, and forcible expulsions”.

“Mahatma Gandhi had said it is the government’s moral responsibility to provide citizenship and jobs to those who fled to India because of religious persecution. Our government passed CAA to give rights to minorities from those countries,” he claimed.

With PTI Input