India’s ‘Diplomatic victory’: European Parliament deferred voting against CAA
The European Parliament has deferred voting on a resolution against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, scheduled for Thursday, that two people familiar with the matter termed as a “diplomatic victory” for New Delhi.
The Parliament was expected to vote on a final joint resolution on the Citizenship Amendment Act, put forward by some 560 of its 751 members from five different groups, on grounds that it is discriminatory against Muslims and violates India’s international obligations, news reports said. The resolution also expressed concern over the National Register of Citizens – an exercise aimed at identifying illegal immigrants – marking a dangerous shift in the way citizenship will be determined in India, thereby creating a large-scale crisis of statelessness and causing immense human suffering, the news reports said.
“We expect that our perspective in this matter will be understood by all objective and fair-minded members,” one of the two people cited above said. The Citizenship Amendment Act is “a matter internal to India” that has been adopted through a democratic process, the person said.
The European Parliament’s move to vote on the resolution was opposed by India, which had earlier said that “as fellow democracies, the EU Parliament should not take actions that call into question the rights and authority of democratically elected legislatures in other regions of the world.”
Although European Parliament resolutions do not affect the decisions of the European Council or European Commission, the timing of its passage could have been awkward given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Brussels in March for an India-European Union summit.
