Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of harbouring a discriminatory mindset after the Centre proposed to issue different coloured passports for those with and without the Emigration Check Required status. Gandhi said the government’s move was “completely unacceptable”.

The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday had said that those holding ECR status will be issued a passport with orange colour passport jacket, and those without ECR status will continue to get a blue passport. As of now, everyone except diplomatic and official passports, have blue covers.

“Treating India’s migrant workers like second class citizens is completely unacceptable,” Gandhi said on Twitter. “This action demonstrates BJP’s discriminatory mindset.”

The ministry had also said that it will soon do away with the last page of the passport that contains information such as residential address of the holder, father, mother, spouse names and passport number. Since the last page of the passport, which usually carried this information, will not be printed anymore, the ministry will make the passports of those in the emigration checks category orange.