Opposition behind violence, says BJP

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 17

As anger and violence against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act continue to sweep various parts of the country, the ruling BJP again put the blame on the Opposition parties.

“It is the handiwork of the Opposition parties. The issue will not sustain for long,” said BJP leader Muralidhar Rao.

However, perceptible discomfort in allies like the Asom Gana Parishad and party cadres in the Northeast over the Act is leading a section of political observers to believe that perhaps the ruling BJP “misjudged the political fallout of the CAA”.

“The dynamics of the CAA are vastly different from those related to the abrogation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. The fallout of the abrogation of special status was limited to Kashmir, but the CAA is a different ball game, given its wider implications, especially when read with the National Register of Citizens, which Home Minister Amit Shah said would follow soon,” said an observer

While yesterday, anger over the police crackdown on Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia students reverberated throughout campuses in the country, finding support from politicians and civil society alike, the day witnessed massive showdown in parts of the trans-Yamuna area.

While sources claimed that “Shah launched the CAA with complete preparation” and that soon an awareness campaign would be launched to “dispel misgivings about the Act, if any”, observers believed the government “either misjudged or did not anticipate the anger and was therefore caught off-guard”.

They also said making the legislation “a particular caste-centric could have been avoided if the government, as it claimed, was not trying to score politically”.

“It appears the intent of the Act either went unread or could not be explained in the quest to make the point that Muslims would not be a part of the amended legislation. Perhaps, making it too emphatic about a particular caste could have been avoided, maybe it could have been done in a more subtle way,” said observers.