The BJP has uploaded a video clip that seeks to mock the slogan “Kaagaz Nahi Dikhayenge”, erroneously suggest only Muslims have taken the pledge and misuse the Delhi Assembly elections to sanitise the new citizenship matrix.
It has also contradicted Union home minister Amit Shah’s assurance that no documents will be asked for the National Population Register and ordered people to keep their papers “safe” and ready for the exercise.
The Karnataka unit of the BJP on Saturday tweeted a video clip of burqa-clad women displaying their voter ID cards at what appears to be a polling booth in Delhi with the comment: “Kaagaz Nahi Dikayenge Hum!!! Keep the documents safe, you will need to show them again during #NPR exercise.” Above the video is the hashtag DelhiPolls 2020.
- The clip shows a queue of only Muslim women. But the protests against the citizenship tripod of the CAA-NPR-NRC are by no means confined to Muslims alone. “Kaagaz Nahi Dikhayenge” became a blockbuster slogan after it was raised in Calcutta and Varun Grover wrote a poem. In Bengal, among those who have taken the vow against showing the documents are actors Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Konkona Sen Sharma, Dhritiman Chaterji and Nandana Dev Sen and author Manoranjan Byapari.
- The women are standing in the queue and showing the identity cards so that they can cast their votes. None of the anti-CAA protesters has said they will not show documents for any valid purpose.
They are opposing the religion-specific discrimination in the CAA, not the democratic process of elections. The careful selection of the clip and the diktat below suggest the BJP wants to equate elections with the citizenship matrix in the hope that if documents can be shown for the polls, there is no reason to withhold them from the NPR.
The BJP unit’s tweet goes against Shah’s assurance in a TV interview on December 24 when he had said people don’t have to show any documents for the NPR and that the proposed population register had no connection with another controversial plan, a nationwide National Register of Citizens.
On Saturday, a Karnataka BJP functionary, who declined to be named, merely said: “I don’t know anything about the tweet. Only those who made the tweet would know why they did so.”
Rizwan Arshad, a Congress MLA, said the tweet had bared the real intention of the BJP. “This is the real intent of what they aim — to target a particular community with the CAA, NRC and the NPR,” Arshad said.
“The Prime Minister and the home minister may be saying different things at different times. But that is their way of trying to confuse the people. This tweet has certified their lies,” he said.
The Centre has in the past told Parliament that the NPR is the first step towards and the mother data for the NRC.
Arshad said: “All those assertions that the citizenship law will not affect Muslims have fallen flat with this one tweet. I should say that the Karnataka BJP’s media cell tweeted the real intention behind the move, perhaps failing to realise for a moment that their big two leaders have been lying to the people.”
A sympathiser of the Prime Minister tried to alert the party’s social media cell.
“Not done! Adds to the fear factor! Derails PM Modi’s pitch. Please be sensible,” tweeted Amrita Bhinder.
The state BJP’s social media cell has a habit of putting the party in discomfort. On January 31 it had tweeted pictures of JNU student Sharjeel Imam and the Jamia shooter, who described himself as “Rambhakt Gopal”, virtually justifying the shooting.
The image, that was quickly deleted, had “Action” written atop Imam’s picture and “Reaction” on top of Gopal’s picture.
The BJP later put out a tweet with an altered caption that read: “Action by Govt”, “Reaction by Anti-nationals”.