SAD takes U-turn on CAA amid Afghanistan crisis; demands to extend cut-off date to 2021

Amid India's ongoing evacuation from Afghanistan, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has now taken a major turn in its approach towards the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as it has asked the Centre to extend the cut-off date of the Act. SAD leader and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee President Manjinder S Sirsa on Tuesday, 24 August, requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to amend the act and extend the date from 2014 to 2021 in the wake of the Afghanistan crisis. 

Demanding the government to consider the Afghan crisis as a reason to extend the cut-off date, Manjinder S Sirsa said, “I request the PM and the HM to amend the CAA and extend the cut-off date from 2014 to 2021 so that people coming from Afghanistan get benefitted and lead a safe life here and their children are able to study here.” The request to extend the date of the Act comes as a part approval of the same as the Akalis had earlier slammed the bill. 

BJP takes a jibe at SAD for switching stance on CAA

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has been vocal against the opposition for the CAA, took a jibe at the SAD for changing its stance. Amit Malviya, national in-charge of BJP's Information and Technology department, hit out at Manjinder S Sirsa for taking the U-turn in his decision to oppose the CAA. “From opposing the CAA to asking for an extension of the CAA cut-off date, even the anti-CAA brigade now acknowledges the importance of humanitarian CAA legislation. The Congress and the Akalis had supported the anti-CAA resolution in the Punjab Assembly,” Malviya tweeted.

Sirsa, while sharing a video of Indians stranded at the Kabul airport, had asked the government to work on the safe evacuation of people from the war-torn country. Meanwhile, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Sunday backed the controversial CAA and said that the Taliban crisis was an example of why the country needs the act. "Recent developments in our volatile neighbourhood and the way Sikhs and Hindus are going through a harrowing time are precisely why it was necessary to enact the Citizenship Amendment Act," Puri had tweeted.

What is CAA?

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act amends the previous Citizenship Act 1955 to make refugees who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, eligible for citizenship. Moreover, the Act exempts the inner line permit areas in Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh and areas falling under the Sixth Schedule in the regions. It will be applicable to the members of these communities having arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014. 

(With ANI inputs)
(IMAGE: PTI)