KCR’s ‘silence’ on CAA leaves all perplexed

Hyderabad: No one can gauge how KCR reacts on a particular issue, why he opposes something at one moment, why he supports the same the very next moment and why he remains silent without citing any reasons.

The same was repeated in the case of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which has triggered violent protests across the country for the past week.

When the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Parliament, KCR directed his party MPs to strongly oppose the bill. He also issued whip to them to attend the Parliament session when CAB would be put up for voting.

Accordingly, TRS members in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha strongly criticised CAB and voted against it.

While the bill was easily passed in the Lok Sabha, where the BJP enjoys a brute majority, it cleared the Rajya Sabha challenge, despite the BJP lacking numbers, thanks to the support of non-NDA parties like YSRCP, TDP and AIADMK.

Surprisingly, KCR who opposed CAB openly has maintained complete silence after it became CAA.

On the other hand, the chief ministers of non-BJP states like West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Maharashtra have said that they won't implement CAA in their respective states and instead, move the Supreme Court.

KCR's close aide and former Karimnagar MP B Vinod Kumar, however, said the power to grant or deny citizenship to anyone lies with the Centre and the states in no way can act independently on this issue. The claims of some states about refusing to implement CAA are only 'political statements' and have no value, he said.

At the most, Vinod said, the states can delay the police verification, which is done to ascertain whether a person residing in a particular place meets the eligibility criterion to get citizenship or not.

In TRS, no person is authorised to speak on the government's policy decisions except the party chief and CM KCR. Vinod's statement gives enough hints that he had the approval of KCR to emphasise a point on a sensitive issue like CAA.

Political analysts wonder why KCR made his close aide comment on CAA when he could have given the clarity on his own, like the CMs of other states.

But then, that is KCR, who remains most unpredictable and no one can correctly assess his stand on any issue.