Centre unleashing violence against anti-CAA protesters: CM

Puducherry: Senior Congress leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Saturday charged the Centre with deliberately unleashing violence against anti-CAA protesters in Delhi.

Addressing reporters here, he said, "It is clear that the NDA government has purposely brought into force the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to divert the people's attention from its failure on the economic and developmental fronts."

The situation has worsened in various States because of the CAA, he said.

He said those belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and RSS had resorted to attacking the peaceful demonstrators in Delhi.

"The death toll in the country's capital has risen to more than 40 and we are really disturbed to see an alarming` situation in the country`s capital," the Chief Minister said.

The police, who should have intervened immediately to quell violence have, however, been claiming they had no instructions to put violence down, he said.

This goes to prove that the Central government had instigated the attacks on those peacefully carrying out protests, he said.

With the death of breadwinners in the violence, women were facing severe hardships, Narayanasamy said while dubbing the incidents in Delhi as most atrocious.

He attributed "ill-conceived and wrong economic policies of the NDA government, economic slowdown, closure of industrial and manufacturing concerns causing rise in unemployment and fall in production in automobile sectors" to the GDP growth dipping to a seven-year low of 4.7 per cent.

Narayanasamy said he had submitted a memorandum to the Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu during his recent visit here to participate in the convocation at Pondicherry University to ensure that students belonging to the Union Territory were earmarked 25 per cent quota of seats in all courses.

"Vice-President is the Chancellor of the University, hence I'd requested him to agree to the plea. The Vice- President promised me that he would take necessary steps to respond to the request," he claimed.