New Delhi, Aug 1 : Accusing the opposition of evading a debate on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) issue in Assam, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) on Wednesday asked the Congress to clarify its stand on the issue.

"What are Congress and TMC afraid of and why are they escaping discussion? Why they don't want to hear the response? They are deliberately disrupting the Rajya Sabha to avoid a debate on NRC," Union HRD minister Prakash Javdekar said in a media briefing.

Earlier in the day, BJP President Amit Shah who was scheduled to continue with his speech in Rajya Sabha was unable to complete it due to a ruckus created by the opposition members over NRC.

Javdekar also hit out at former Congress President Sonia Gandhi saying that she should clear her stand on NRC as it was started by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

"NRC is the medium of identifying illegal migrants and this was started off by Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 and now Congress wants to save them. Even Indira Gandhi had earlier said that the illegal migrants should go back to Bangladesh," he added.

 

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New Delhi, Sep 24: The Congress on Tuesday cited BJP MP Kangana Ranaut's purported remarks on farm laws to allege that the ruling party was making efforts to bring back the three laws that were repealed in 2021, and asserted that Haryana will give a befitting reply to it.

The Congress shared on X an undated video of Ranaut in which she is purportedly saying in Hindi, "Farm laws that have been repealed should be brought back. I think this may get controversial. The laws in farmers' interest be brought back. Farmers should themselves demand this (to bring farm laws back) so that there is no hindrance to their prosperity.

"Farmers are a pillar of strength in India's progress. Only in some states, they had objected to farm laws. I appeal with folded hands that farm laws should be brought back in the interest of farmers."

In a post in Hindi along with the video, the Congress said, "The three black laws imposed on farmers should be brought back: BJP MP Kangana Ranaut has said this. More than 750 farmers of the country were martyred, only then did the Modi government wake up and these black laws were withdrawn."

Now BJP MPs are planning to bring back these laws, the Congress alleged.

"The Congress is with the farmers. These black laws will never return, no matter how hard Narendra Modi and his MPs try," the opposition party said on X.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate also shared the video of Ranaut on X and said, "'All three farm laws should be brought back': BJP MP Kangana Ranaut. More than 750 farmers were martyred while protesting against the three black farmer laws. Efforts are being made to bring them back."

"We will never let that happen. Haryana will answer first," she said in an apparent reference to the assembly polls in Haryana.

Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera also shared the video on X and said it was the BJP's "real thinking".

"How many times will you deceive the farmers, you two-faced people?" Khera said in a post in Hindi.

The three laws -- Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act -- were repealed in November 2021.

The farmers' protest started at the fag-end of November 2020 and ended after Parliament repealed the three laws. The legislations came into force in June 2020 and were repealed in November 2021.