Hopping from Jamia to Shaheen Bagh & Now JNU, Shashi Tharoor's Sunday Delhi Tour is About Religion & Citizenship

New Delhi: Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre, Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that religion was never mentioned in citizenship till the saffron party did it by amending the Citizenship law.

Referring to alleged brutal crackdown by police on students of Jamia Milia Islamia, Tharoor said that what happened on December 15 was a blot on the nation. "Everyone has given their blood in sacrifice for the unity of India. What the government is doing is against the Constitution. They are attacking the soul of India," Tharoor said as he stood at the central university in solidarity with the students.

Attacking the CAA, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said the Centre's step is discriminatory and an effort to marginalise "one community". "What has been done by the government is discriminatory and is an effort to marginalise one community in India. That is why we had opposed the introduction of the bill in the Parliament, as it brought for the first time religion in the Citizenship Act," he said.

Terming the Citizenship Amendment Act as "discriminatory", Tharoor asserted that it is against the ideals of unity espoused by Mahatma Gandhi.

The senior Congress leader later went to the Shaheen Bagh protest, where an inter-faith ceremony was organised. Thousands gathered to perform traditional Hindu-style 'hawan' and chants of Sikh 'kirtan' along with reading out of the Preamble of the Constitution.

"It was fabulous to see the courage, passion and determination of the women of Shaheen Bagh. Including the nonagenarian 'dadis' who have held fast since the start," he said.

Three elderly women now popular as the 'Dabang Dadis' of Shaheen Bagh have been a constant sight at the centre stage of the protest venue since day one.

Later, the Congress leader took a metro train to reach Jawaharlal Nehru University for a talk on recent changes in the citizenship law. "Message to JNU students awaiting me: Decided to give up battling the traffic near ShaheenBagh & have taken the metro instead to get to you. Will still be late, but not as late as if I'd stuck to four wheels! See you all soon! Looking forward to our interaction," he tweeted.

On Friday, Tharoor had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for retracting their stand on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said the government was "hastening" to cover its tracks.