National vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Baijayant Jay Panda expressed annoyance with the opposition for supporting the anti-citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests and backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "atrocities on minorities in Pakistan" remark.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is absolutely right in saying that protests should happen over the plight of minorities in Pakistan. The CAA does not impact any Indian citizen...The protests should be on the suffering of the minorities in Pakistan," he said while speaking to ANI in New Delhi.
"This CAA will give citizenship to the people who have escaped persecution. Their countries did not have a neutral constitution like India. They are still in great distress. The minority groups have reduced drastically. We should protest on such problems," the BJP leader added.
Panda's statement comes just a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at the Congress for opposing the newly-enacted law and for not speaking against Pakistan during the anti-CAA protests.
The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.