Amid Afghan crisis, JP Nadda hails citizenship law changes

Nadda, who is in Uttarakhand, said everyone was watching how people in Afghanistan were seeking evacuation. “But we had raised the same issue. Our Sikh and Hindu brothers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who had taken refuge in India but had not got constitutional protection and were deprived of facilities for several years. They were being exploited. The Narendra Modi government brought them to the mainstream through CAA,” he said.

He also said the Union government was making efforts to ensure the safe return of Indian citizens from Afghanistan.

Nadda is on a two-day visit to Uttarakhand to oversee the BJP’s preparations for next year’s Assembly elections.

On Saturday, the last day of his visit, he interacted with ex-servicemen and later spoke at a ceremony to honour sadhus in Haridwar.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami was present during the second event where Nadda also sought blessings from sadhus.

During the interaction with ex-servicemen, Nadda said Prime Minister Modi’s leadership has raised the morale of security personnel and they do not need to wait for permission from the central headquarters to retaliate against firing from across the border.

Nadda claimed that around 8-10 years back, when firing would occur in Kathua or Poonch, information had to be reported to different offices and ultimately security personnel would asked to “wait” for a message, which was not the case any more.

Nadda also said that modernization of armed forces had been stopped for a long time in the past but the Modi government sped up the exercise.