india

Updated: Jan 13, 2020 18:38 IST

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday opened a meeting of 20 opposition parties with a stinging attack on the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gandhi, who assumed leadership role of the Congress last year, also described the national population register as the first step to a “nationwide NRC, or National Register of Citizens.

Gandhi, who criticised the “shockingly partisan and brutal” crackdown by the police in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, also said that though the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the NRC were the immediate cause of the “nationwide spontaneous protests” but these “reflect widespread frustration and pent up anger, which is now out in the open”.

Sonia Gandhi also accused PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of misleading the nation on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. “The government has let loose a reign of oppression, spreading hatred and trying to divide our people along sectarian lines. There is unprecedented turmoil today”, she said.

She referred to contradictions in statements of the two government leaders and charged them with continuing their provocative statements, “insensitive to the state suppression and violence” that is increasingly becoming commonplace.

“The nation has watched in horror at the BJP-orchestrated assault on JNU coming so soon after what happened in Jamia (Millia Islamia), BHU (Banaras Hindu University), Allahabad University and AMU (Aligarh Muslim University) and other institutions of higher learning in other parts of the country,” she told the meeting of 20 Opposition parties.

There were many absentees from the opposition camp including Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, DMK led by MK Stalin, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and the Shiv Sena.

Asserting that the NRC seems to have back-fired in Assam, Gandhi said the Modi-Shah government is now focusing on NPR (National Population Register) exercise that is scheduled to begin in a few months.

“Contrary to the assertions of the home minister, it is clear that this is being done to lead to a nation-wide NRC,” Gandhi said.

The real issue facing India today is the collapse of economic activity and slowing growth and development, affecting all sections of society, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, the Congress president said.