CAB is an attempt by Centre to distract people from its failures: Cong

The Congress on Monday alleged that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has been brought in to distract people from the failures of the BJP-led government on NRC and the economic front. Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said the bill is in violation of many articles of the Constitution and the basic spirit of the Preamble which talks of equality, liberty and fraternity.

Asked will the Congress challenge the bill in Supreme Court, he said, "I am sure if this bill is passed, there are some in the Congress party who are itching to challenge this in the court." "This bill is nothing but an exercise to distract from the failure of the BJP (government) with respect to the NRC in Assam were around 19 lakh people have been excluded and many of them seem to be genuine Indians," Gogoi said.

He also claimed that it is an attempt to divert attention from the economic failures. "It seems that the NRC was nothing but a political exercise for the BJP because when 40 lakh were excluded, Home Minister Amit Shah jumped and termed them, infiltrators. Many of them turned out to be Indians," Gogoi said.

"The home minister should first apologize to the people of the Gorkha community whom he called infiltrators," he said.