Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

Leading a rally in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) at Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Ashram, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday said while Muslims have 150 countries where they can go to, “for Hindus there is only one country – Bharat”.

The BJP on Tuesday took out 62 rallies in different cities of Gujarat in support of the new citizenship law. While Rupani led a rally in Ahmedabad, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel led one in Mehsana, among many such pro-CAA marches.

Addressing a huge crowd, Rupani said, “Muslims in India were happy and their population rose from 9 per cent to 14 per cent…because of the secular Constitution they live a dignified life in India.”

He said the percentage of Hindus in Pakistan reduced from 22 to 3 because “they are tortured, raped, their properties destroyed. They returned to India long ago, but they can’t avail of benefits because they are not (Indian) citizens… In Bangladesh, Hindus constitute just 2 per cent of the population, while in Afghanistan, the number of Hindus and Sikhs are around 500, (down) from over 2 lakh earlier….

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“Muslims have 150 countries where they can live, but for Hindus there is only one country, and that is Bharat.”

Blaming the Opposition for protests against the CAA, the Gujarat CM said, “The Congress and its allies are creating unrest in the country by misleading people, rioting and destroying public property. I want to ask the Congress: how is the CAA against what Mahatma Gandhi said when the country was being divided… that Hindus from these three countries, if they wish to come back…”

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Acknowledging that the BJP’s 2019 Lok Sabha election promise also included the NRC, Rupani said, “At the time of elections, the BJP had announced that if we form the government, then we will remove Article 370, we will pave the path for the temple at Ram Janmabhoomi, we will abolish triple talaq, implement CAA to grant citizenship to our refugees, implement the NRC, and send back infiltrators. The people democratically brought the BJP and its allies to power.”

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With CAA, he told the crowd, “not a single Muslim in India will lose citizenship”.

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