In a sharp attack on the government, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said "India's tryst with bigotry and narrow minded exclusion" was confirmed as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha at midnight yesterday.
The Congress general secretary's remarks came after the CAB was passed in the Lok Sabha with 311 members favouring it and 80 voting against it. The bill will now be tabled in the Rajya Sabha for its nod on Wednesday.
"Last night at midnight, India's tryst with bigotry and narrow minded exclusion was confirmed as the CAB was passed in the Lok Sabha. Our forefathers gave their lifeblood for our freedom," she said in a tweet, recalling her great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru's speech on the midnight of August 14-15, 1947, when India rang in its Independence.
In that hard fought freedom is enshrined the right to equality, and the right to freedom of religion, Priyanka Gandhi said.
"Our constitution, our citizenship, our dreams of a strong and unified India belong to all of us," she said in another tweet.
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"We will fight against this government's agenda to systematically destroy our constitution and undo the fundamental premise on which our country was built with all our might," she said.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan after facing religious persecution there, was passed in the Lok Sabha a little past midnight on Monday after a heated debate that lasted over seven hours.
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom," Nehru had said in the opening lines of a speech believed to be among the greatest in the 20th century.
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