Centre will pass Citizenship Bill: BJP MLA Mrinal Saikia

Guwahati, October 8, 2018:

The Centre will pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which seeks to grant citizenship to the non-Muslim immigrants of Bangladesh besides Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India till December 31, 2014, disclosed BJP MLA, Mrinal Saikia, on Monday.

Earlier, following a BJP legislature party meeting in Assam, the MLAs were asked not to divulge the position of the government which stands in favour of the controversial bill. But Saikia fired the bombshell.

“It was in our Vision Document that we will pass the Citizenship Bill. Recently, it was decided at BJP’s National Executive that the bill will be placed in the Lok Sabha and then it will be introduced in the Rajya Sabha. We have to pass the bill as it is necessary for their (non-Muslim immigrants’) security,” Saikia told reporters.

He said everybody including political parties and groups and organisations must have read the BJP’s Vision Document.

Asked about the opposition of Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to the bill, Saikia said, “They (AGP) should have seriously studied every point of the BJP’s Vision Document before stitching alliance with the party. They must have read this but now they are trying to fan passion,” he said.

Asked about the opposition of “nationalist organisation” All Assam Students’ Union to the bill, he thundered, “Mere assertion of claiming to be a nationalist organisation does not stand. Who gave whom the title of nationalist organisation?”