“Those working in the IT-BT sector in Bengaluru, contributing to our economy – lawyers, bankers, and common auto-rickshaw drivers, everyone is here to support [the CAA]. Not those puncture-wallahs in whose hearts, if you slit, you cannot even see two letters.”

This was what Tejasvi Surya, BJP MP from Bengaluru South, said on Sunday at a rally held in support of the Citizenship Act. Surya equated those opposing the new law with illiterate odd-jobs workers, while contending that those supporting it are from the educated and useful sections of society.