Hitting out at the BJP for trying to divide the people on communal line, he said it is the duty of everyone to protect the Constitution which ensures equality of all the people irrespective of their caste and religion. “Throughout the country protests are going on against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register. But we have to unite them and channelise their protest towards the NPR which is the first step towards the implementation of the NRC,” he said, adding that it would take steps to unite all the trade unions in this regard.

In the conference, K Hemalatha and Tapan Sen have been elected as president and general secretary for the second time while 425 members were elected to the general committee.

Hemalatha called upon the workers to unitedly fight against the government’s move to take back the hard won rights of the working class. “It is the workers who voted the BJP to power after carried away by the slogans raised by the party. After coming to power, the BJP is denying all the rights for which the workers struggled for centuries,” she said.

CITU national vice president A Soundararajan said that the government department themselves are exploiting the workers when they should be an example of model employer. Earlier, the conference adopted to hold an all-India jail bharo (filling the jail) protest against the Centre on March 6 over the increasing incidence of assault onwomen.