May 04, 2024 11:45 AM IST
Addressing a press conference in Goa, where the issue of dual citizenship is being debated in the run-up to the polls, Tharoor, a former diplomat, said he will take up the matter very seriously
Panaji: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday promised to have a “serious discussion” under a proper forum on the issue of dual citizenship and believes Indians living abroad need to be allowed to keep their Indian passports “even when circumstances require them to take another passport.”
Addressing a press conference in Goa, where the issue of dual citizenship is being debated in the run-up to the polls, Tharoor, a former diplomat, said he will take up the matter very seriously.
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“We do need to encourage and permit our citizens to keep their Indian passports even when circumstances require them to take another passport for which we have to find a legal formula. And as far as I am concerned, I will be a voice for that,” Tharoor said.
“I myself have taken up this issue in the past and I have not found much support from either the present government of the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] or the previous government for dual citizenship yet, but I do believe that we need to have a more expansive understanding,” the Congress MP told the media.
He added that a lot of Indians living abroad may have had to take a foreign passport for reasons of professional convenience, travel, work and so on. “…Yet they still feel an emotional connection to their motherland. And we need to find ways to recognise that”, he said, adding that while Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) promised to be a citizenship document it was actually a misnomer.
“It is not a citizenship, it is only a lifetime visa. And as we’ve seen with the BJP government even that visa can be revoked,” Tharoor said.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said that in the previous government when he was the chairman of the external affairs committee, a discussion was held that led to the decision to allow Indians living abroad to come back and vote. “I again asked the question of voting rights for Indians abroad, starting with your passport holders, but even then the present government of the BJP has been reluctant,” he added.
Tharoor is in Goa to campaign for the Congress party. He said the BJP will be in for a “big surprise” when it comes to the final result day.
Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his governance, Tharoor said that when Modi came to power in 2014, he had a very persuasive agenda – anti-corruption, developments, etc. Then perhaps by the first term itself, the demonetisation, jobs being lost everywhere, SMEs closing, so in 2019, he bought (the issue of) national security, Balakot attacks. “Now after 2019, he can’t even say that because of the situation along the Chinese border”.
“So now you’ve come to 2024 and the messages you have only left with is scaremongering. It’s embarrassing when the Prime Minister of the country talks like this,” Tharoor said.
The Congress leader said that the PM’s fearmongering messages are not going to get him votes. His speeches can only move the hardcore Hindutva voters who are already in the BJP camp and some of them are not even going to vote. That’s the situation that BJP is facing”, he added.
