'Who keeps a birth certificate?': Telangana Home Min indicates KCR will reject CAA, NRC

Even though Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is yet to clarify his government’s stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), state Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali and Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader had said neither CAA nor NRC will be implemented in the state.

While addressing a gathering, Mahmood Ali said that he had recently met Union minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and conveyed the same. 

spoke against the amended Citizenship Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), citing his conversation with the Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi stating that let the Hindus suffering persecution be invited from all over the world to India but not in Telangana. Ali said, "He (Naqvi) had come from Delhi to attend a program. I met him and said forget Pakistan and Bangladesh, let persecuted Hindus from all over the world come and take refuge in India, but why create problems here (Telangana)? People who have been living here for ages don't have birth certificates. Who keeps a birth certificate? This is a trick to create a ruckus."

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Telangana leaders speak out against CAA

Another TRS leader Keshava Rao while speaking in the Rajya Sabha had expressed his opposition to the Act and stated that it divides migrants on the basis of religion. He also alleged that all benefits of the Act go to Hindu refugees alone. CPI(M) leader TK Rangarajan had echoed similar sentiments calling the Act illegal and unconstitutional and alleged that it divides people on religious lines.

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Despite the prime minister's assurances that the CAA is about giving citizenship and not about snatching it away, people across the nation have protested against the Act. Protests at various places turned violent with incidents of stone-pelting and vandalizing public property.

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About CAA

The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and came to India on or before December 31, 2014. The process of implementing the CAA has started with Uttar Pradesh becoming the first state to start the implementation process after the center issued a gazette notification announcing that the CAA has come into effect from January 10, 2020.

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