CAA doesn't alter India's secular credentials, opposition spreading 'misinformation': Puri

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act does not alter India's secular credentials and accused opposition parties of spreading "misinformation" on the new law.

"As opposition parties mount an anti-govt campaign using CAA as the lightening rod to spread misinformation, inflame passions, mobilise forces inimical to India's interests & incite violence," he tweeted.

"CAA neither alters nor challenges rights of any Indian citizen, irrespective of religion, caste, creed, sect, ethnicity or race. The narrative that it threatens religious minorities in India is ignorance at best, & treacherous at worst," he said.

Puri added that the opposition protesting against the new citizenship law was riding on a false narrative.

"CAA does not mean that Muslims who are otherwise persecuted in these countries cannot apply for Indian citizenship - in fact, in the last five years, PM Modi's govt has granted citizenship to nearly 600 Muslims from these countries," he said.

Later at a press conference here, the Union minister hit out at the Congress over violent anti-CAA protests, saying that the party should be ashamed.

"This is treachery and complete falsification of facts... today, somebody was talking about CAA saying these things were being made up like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana's claim that every Indian will have a house by 2022."

"If I was still in the university and easily persuaded to pelt stones, I would have picked up a stone and pelted it at the guy who was talking like that," he said, adding that these one crore houses would be completed before 2022.

Puri said disagreement has a space in democracy, but pelting stones is "inexcusable".