Actor-turned-politician and former Congress Lok Sabha candidate Urmila Matondkar has called Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) a black law. The ‘Rangeela star’ compared CAA with the British era Rowlatt Act.
However, she was criticized for mentioning the year wrong.
While addressing an event in Mumbai on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, she said that after the end of the Second World War in 1919, the British knew that unrest was spreading in India and that it would increase after the WW II was over. So, they brought in a law commonly known as the Rowlatt Act," Matondkar said
In reality, World War II took place between 1939 and 1945.
She said that both the CAA and Rowlatt Act will be viewed as black laws in history.
The Rowlatt Act, which was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, allowed the British to arrest and jail anyone they wished without a fair trial if they were thought to be plotting against the British.
"Gandhiji was the leader of the whole world, not only India. If anyone has followed the Hindu religion to the maximum, it was Gandhiji. The man who killed Mahatma Gandhi was neither a Muslim nor a Sikh. He was a Hindu and I have nothing more to tell you about it,” the actor said.
Urmila had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Mumbai North constituency and resigned from the party in September 2019 citing inaction on the part of "key functionaries of Mumbai Congress''.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event
Pope Francis greets Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit near Bari, Italy, in June last year, as Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and then British prime minister Rishi Sunak look on