No right to live in India if you can't chant Vande Mataram: Union Minister Pratap Sarangi

New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Pratap Chandra Sarangi in Gujarat's Surat on Saturday said that 'those who do not accept chanting Vande Mataram have no right to live in India'. He also said that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which give citizenship to non-Muslim minorities when entered India before December 31, 2014, was a way to 'atone for the sin of Partition' committed by the Congress and should have passed 70 years ago.

"CAA should have happened 70 years ago. CAA is a way to atone for the sin committed by our forefathers, a select few leaders. It is atonement for the sin of Partition. And we should congratulate PM Narendra Modi for this. The Congress committed the sin, and we are atoning," Sarangi said.

The union minister also said Partition of India in 1947 had taken place on a communal basis. "The Partition did not take place on any political, economical, geographical, or historical basis. It was done on a communal basis. We never said we cannot live with Muslims. We lived with them for thousands of years," he said.

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"But who compelled us enter into an agreement with the people who propounded the two-nation theory? Partition was not unavoidable. The country is nobody's paternal property. Nobody had the right to divide it," he said, adding that free water and electricity will not develop the nation. 

Watch the video of the minister speaking during an event in Surat:

#WATCH Union Minister Pratap Sarangi in Surat, Gujarat: Those who do not accept Vande Mataram have no right to live in India. (18.01.2020) pic.twitter.com/zEr4R8Z7Op — ANI (@ANI) January 18, 2020

Sarangi accused the Congress of spreading disinformation about the CAA and causing unrest in the country. "Those who set the country on fire are not patriots. Those who do not accept India's freedom, unity, Vande Mataram, have no right to stay in the country. They should go wherever they can," he added.

Speaking on economy, the union minister said that the country is going through the darkest time before dawn and suggested that photo of Goddess Laxmi be used on Indian currency notes to improve the current condition.