New Delhi: With the impending Lok Sabha elections inching closer, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), expecting another stint at power, released its manifesto titled 'Sankalpit Bharat, Sashakt Bharat' (Determined India, Empowered India), amid much fanfare on Monday. Among a host of promises, the saffron party reiterated its promise of getting the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed, if it happens to win the battle for Delhi.
Senior Journalist and Northeast affairs expert calls inclusion of citizenship bill in BJP poll manifesto a move to woo voters The manifesto reads, "We are committed to the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Bill for the protection of individuals and religious minority communities from neighbouring countries escaping religious persecution. We will make all efforts to clarify the issues to the sections of populations from the northeast who have expressed apprehensions."We will try to pass the Citizenship amendment bill in the Parliament," said Home Minister Rajnath Singh while releasing the poll manifesto in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah and other top leaders, including Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2016, and passed in the lower house on January 8, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to illegal migrants, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian extraction. However, the Act doesn’t have a provision for Muslim sects like Shias and Ahmediyas who also face persecution in Pakistan. Speaking to ETV Bharat, Senior Journalist and an expert on Northeast affairs, Deepak Diwan said, "this (Citizenship Bill) is being done to woo the Hindu voters of West Bengal and Assam's Barak valley."
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The announcement came after the saffron party received severe criticism and backlash from Hindu groups, particularly the members of the Hindu-Bengali community of Assam, following its failure in introducing the bill in the Rajya Sabha, let alone its passage.
The BJP manifesto also appears contradictory when it talks about the implementation of an Assam like National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country, while committing on the passage of the citizenship bill, which negates the very idea of NRC.
Terming the move as a "balancing act", Diwan said, "on one hand they are claiming to protect the linguistic, cultural and social identity of the people of the region, and on the other, they are pushing the bill."
Elaborating on the issue, Diwan added, "It's more of an emotional issue in the Northeastern region. For example, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram have an Inner Line Permit system (ILP) in place, which provides protection to the indigenous community of the respective states. Allies like, National People's Party, had already clarified that if the central government goes ahead with the passage of Citizenship bill, they will pull out of the National Democratic Alliance. It hasn't happened yet, but, the threat looms."
Despite violent rounds of protests across North-east, BJP and it's leaders have time and again expressed their intention of passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Parliament.
