Government slams anti-CAA resolution in EU Parliament

NEW DELHI: The EU Parliament should not take actions that call into question the rights and authority of democratically elected legislatures, official sources said on Sunday ahead of a vote on a resolution against India's new citizenship law.

The government also called upon the sponsors and supporters of the resolution to engage with India to get a full assessment of the facts, official sources said.

The Citizenship Amendment Act is a matter entirely internal to India and the law was adopted through democratic means after a public debate in both houses of Parliament, they said.

A resolution tabled by some EU members against India's Citizenship Amendment Act says that the law marks a "dangerous shift" in the country's citizenship regime. The European parliament is set to debate and vote on the resolution.

It makes a reference to the Charter of the United Nations, Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as the India-EU Strategic Partnership Joint Action Plan signed in November 2005, and to the EU-India Thematic Dialogue on Human Rights as it urges the Indian authorities to "engage constructively" with those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and consider their demands to repeal the "discriminatory CAA".

"The CAA marks a dangerous shift in the way citizenship will be determined in India and is set to create the largest statelessness crisis in the world and cause immense human suffering," it notes.