Resolutions against CAA ‘political gesture’, states hardly have any role: Shashi Tharoor

KOLKATA: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that bringing in resolutions against the CAA is more of a “political gesture” by the states as they hardly have any role in granting citizenships.

In an interview to PTI, the lawmaker said that in the implementation of the National Population Register (NPR) and the proposed nationwide NRC, the states will have a vital part as it will be their officials who will conduct the exercise because the Centre doesn’t have the required manpower.

“That’s more of a political gesture. The citizenship is given by the federal government only and obviously no states can give citizenship, so it has nothing for them to implement or not implement,” Tharoor said.

“They (the states) can pass a resolution or go to the court but in practice what can they do? The state governments can’t say they won’t implement CAA, what they can say is they will not implement NPR-NRC as they will have a crucial role in it,” he added.