Home minister Amit Shah during the 'Booth Karyakarta Sammelan' at IG Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday. (ANI phot... Read More

BJP on Sunday rolled out the heavy artillery for its door-to-door outreach on the new citizenship law , with Union home minister Amit Shah leading the charge by touring south Delhi's refugee colony Lajpat Nagar and holding a party rally where he accused Congress's Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, of "misleading people" and "inciting violence" during anti-CAA protests.

Shah, who visited eight houses, a jhuggi and a temple in Lajpat Nagar, also spoke of how Friday's mob attack on Gurdwara Nankana Sahib in Pakistan "was the answer to all those opposing CAA".

"Tell me, if the Sikhs who were attacked at Gurdwara Nankana Sahib will not come to India, then where they will go?" he said.

The home minister called Kejriwal and the Gandhis "anti-Dalits" for opposing the amended citizenship law. "The Prime Minister came up with CAA. It was approved by the Cabinet and then Parliament passed it. Kejriwal misled people...I want to ask people if they want a government in Delhi that instigates riots for vote-bank politics," he said during a rally of BJP booth workers at IGI Stadium.

On Congress, Shah said Priyanka, who heads the party's east UP unit, had signalled her endorsement of the anti-CAA riots by announcing she would visit the homes of those arrested for violence during the protests.

At Lajpat Nagar, he asked people to give missed calls to a toll-free number meant to show support to CAA. He said Muslims had nothing to fear since the new law had no provision to take away anyone's citizenship. "Your support to the law has now reached Modiji," he told a family that dialled the number in front of him.

Shah's visit to the colony, where many houses belong to families that migrated from Pakistan after Partition, was not without a murmur of protest. A group of girls was heard shouting "We reject CAA" and holding up posters bearing messages like "Shame NRC" and "Azaadi".

In UP, where 23 people died in violence during anti-CAA protests last month, BJP's outreach aimed at Muslims was led by the party's working president JP Nadda in Ghaziabad, defence minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow and CM Yogi Adityanath in hiis constituency, Gorakhpur. BJP also sent Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of PM Narendra Modi , while Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi helmed an outreach programme at Dhamaura village in Rampur.

Rajnath wove his campaign around "India's cultural ethos of sarvdharm sambhav (equal respect for all religions)" and "vasudhaiva kutumbakam (world is one family)", telling people that BJP could never violate these values.

BJP's "jan jagran (public awareness)" drive till January 15 aims to reach out to three crore families and counter the opposition's campaign, which it claims is based on lies.

In Jaipur, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman took off from where the home minister left off, saying Congress was "lying to the nation on CAA" as part of its "appeasement" policy.

"Congress has conveniently highlighted some portions of the act while ignoring others, thereby causing confusion. I would like to clear this misconception that the Act is against any community," she said. "Our government has given citizenship to several Muslims since 2014. Over 2,000 people from Pakistan, including Muslims, have been granted asylum since 2014. Another 900 people from Afghanistan, which again includes 600 Muslims, got citizenship. Over 200 Bangladeshi nationals were given citizenship, mostly Muslims."

Sitharaman's door-to-door outreach was focused on the Muslim-dominated areas of Sanganer, around 14km from Jaipur.

Union minister Jitendra Singh visited Jammu, where he said that India was "the only shelter for religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities who come from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan for their safety and honour".



In Video: Anti-CAA protests: Rahul, Priyanka instigated riots, alleges Amit Shah