San Francisco municipal body flays move on Citizenship Amendment Act

The resolution also opposed the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR), calling them discriminatory. The body is formally known as the Board of Supervisors and all its 11 elected members, who have the title of Supervisor, are Democrats.

The municipal body in the heart of the Silicon Valley linked the legislation in India and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to President Donald Trump in the resolution that claimed to "express solidarity with San Francisco's South Asian Community".

Mar claimed that "far-right Hindu nationalist sympathisers are Trump's largest immigrant donor base" and warned that "the Hindu Nationalist ecosystem extends to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley".

One of the Supervisors, Aaron Peskin, cautioned the municipal body about stepping into international affairs, but he nevertheless joined the other 10 Democrats in voting for the resolution.

"We should proceed with a matter like this very, very carefully," Peskin said, adding that he was "reticent to assume the role of a member of Congress" and reminded "my colleagues that we are not members of Congress".

San Franciso is dominated by the left wing of the Democratic Party, which is emerging powerful within the party and is trying to set the agenda regarding India. Under the left's sway, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is to be the party's presidential candidate, has made an openly communal appeal to Muslim voters by raising the Kashmir and CAA issues in his "Agenda for Muslim American Communities". Meanwhile, municipal bodies in Seattle in Washington state, St Paul in Minnesota, Cambridge in Massachusetts and Albany in New York have also passed similar resolutions pushed by Islamic organisations. (IANS)

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