Tamil actor and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief Thalapathy Vijay strongly criticized the Narendra Modi-led Central government on Monday, March 11, post the notification of rules related to the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

He expressed his disapproval in a statement put out on X, where he stated that it’s absolutely “not acceptable” to execute the CAA. “It is not acceptable to implement any law like the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) in an environment where all citizens of the country live with social harmony,” an interpretation of his statement, originally issued in Tamil, indicated.

He additionally urged the Tamil Nadu government to take all measures necessary to prevent the implementation of the law in the state. “The leaders should ensure that this law does not get implemented in Tamil Nadu,” the statement further added.

Check out the letter right here:

For those caught unversed, on Monday, the Union Home Ministry officially issued the rules for the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), prior to the announcement of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The Centre put the CAA into effect by notifying the rules, four years after the controversial law was passed. The purpose is to expedite citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. Additionally, applicants will have to submit an eligibility certificate issued by a locally recognized community institution to verify that they belong to an eligible community (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian). They will also have to provide a declaration, stating that they will “irrevocably” renounce their current citizenship and want to make “India as a permanent home.”

Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister M K Stalin called this move by the BJP a “divisive agenda” and stated that “people will teach them (BJP) a befitting lesson.”

Even back in 2019, numerous celebrities, such as Farhan Akhtar, Manoj Bajpayee, Anurag Kashyap, Huma Qureshi, Richa Chadha, Ali Fazal, Shabana Azmi, Kabir Khan, Swara Bhasker, unequivocally condemned the law, and some even actively participated in the CAA protests.