Udupi: The BJP has come to power by misguiding people, alleged social activist Kavitha Reddy.

She was speaking at the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protest, organised by Sahabalve-Udupi and other like-minded people’s organizations at Christian High School Grounds on Thursday.

Kavitha said that BJP, which had come to power promising jobs to youth, had failed to fulfill its promise. “Thus by implementing the CAA, it is diverting the nation from core issues.’’ The CAA is nothing but equal to setting the home ablaze just to catch a rat. The protest against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is turning out to be second freedom fight, she said. Activist Najma Nazeer Chikkanerale said protests against the CAA and the NRC across the nation were not against giving citizenship to persecuted people, but against the Centre’s move of denying citizenship to Muslims through the ‘divisive’ CAA.

The CAA, for the first time, is making religion the basis of granting citizenship in India. It is designed to discriminate against Muslims and it is purely the vote bank politics planned by BJP. The Act violates the secular principles of the Constitution, she alleged. Former speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly Ramesh Kumar, who spoke on the occasion, said that the Central government had no right to implement such anti-Constitutional laws.