Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday in Rajya Sabha slammed Congress for trying to scuttle the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019. Amit Shah said, " What happened during emergency? All media was banned, all opposition leaders were jailed. There was no democracy for 19 months, and you are accusing us of misusing laws? Kindly look at your past."

Post-debate the voting was done today ignoring Opposition's demand to send it to the Select committee for further scrutiny and it was passed in the Upper House where government currently doesn't have a majority. The bill was passed with the margin 147-42.

Earlier Digivijaya Singh said that Congress doesn't believe the intent of the government. Rejecting this accusation, Home Minister took a jibe at Digvijaya Singh said, "Digvijaya Singh ji seems angry, it is natural, he just lost elections...he said 'in 3 cases of NIA no one was punished.' I will tell you why, because earlier in these cases political vendetta was done&attempt was made to link a particular religion to terror UAPA. "

Amit Shah in this context spoke about the Samjhauta Express blast and said that initial accused were let go off as they belonged to a certain religion and fake case was registered to target people of another religion as elections were nearing. Highlighting BJP's record of supporting the anti-terror bill, Shah said, " When we were in opposition, we supported previous UAPA amendments, be it in 2004,'08 or '13 as we believe all should support tough measures against terror. We also believe that terror has no religion, it is against humanity,not against a particular Govt or individual".

Earlier P. Chidambaram had raised the issue of how Centre can add the name of a terrorist. The former Union Minister said, 'If you see reasons for amendment, it says 'to empower NIA'.In passing you say 'empowers Centre to add or remove an individual's name as a terrorist', this mischief is why we are opposing this amendment, we are not opposing Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act".

Amit Shah in reply said, "Chidambaram ji asked why to name an individual as a terrorist when the organization they are affiliated to is already banned. It is because we ban one org, another one comes up by same individuals. Till when will we keep banning orgs?".

In this context, Amit Shah gave the example of Yasin Bhatkal and said that all security bodies could have his picture and fingerprints from 2009, if UPA was proactive. Rajya Sabha on Thursday took up the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019, after rejecting Opposition's demand not to extend the sitting of the Upper House beyond the scheduled time for the passage of the contentious Bill that designates an individual as a terrorist.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad termed the government's insistence of taking up the Bill as "unfair" and accused the government of getting the Bills passed without proper scrutiny."This is unjust and unfair on the part of the government. You are getting the Bills passed without scrutiny and that too in the extended session of the Parliament. We wanted the Bill to be sent to Select Committee but you did not agree," Azad said.

With ANI inputs