Governor of Kerala Arif Mohammed Khan spoke against the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) advertisements put out by the state government on the front page of national dailies.
Spending public money for political campaigning was thoroughly undesirable, he said. The Governor was talking to news channels in Delhi. "Public money is being used to campaign against a law which has been passed by Parliament. Sounds a bit strange to me," Khan said, reports The Hindu.
The Governor added that it would not have been a problem if the advertisement was given by a political party.
The ad that came on Friday said, “The State is leading the efforts to protect Constitutional values,” and that the Kerala assembly was the first to pass a unanimous resolution against the CAA.
“The State has taken bold initiatives to address the apprehensions of the public. Kerala stayed NPR (National Population Register) procedures that can lead to a National Register of Citizens. Kerala also continues to lead in the Human Development Index,” the ad says.
The CAA has sparked country-wide protest, with thousands of people coming out in the streets alleging that the Act is discriminatory and goes against Muslims and other religious minorities.
The Governor had also spoken out against the state assembly’s resolution against the CAA. He said that the passing of such a resolution by the Assembly had no legal or constitutional validity.
Criticising the assembly resolution, the Governor said last week, “This may be a part of the advice given by the people from the Indian History Congress to the government but this has no legal or constitutional validity. Why? Because citizenship is exclusively a central subject. So, this actually means nothing.”
He had expressed his pro-CAA views at the Indian History Congress held at Kannur University. The delegates present at the event had objected to his remarks while historian and AMU faculty Irfan Habib, who was on stage, also came out against the Governor's words. The Governor posted a series of tweets later, accusing the octogenarian historian of disrupting his speech.