Citizenship (Amendment) Bill: Who will stick till the end?

Guwahati, January 9, 2019: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

Despite of thousands of protestors moving to the streets sending a clear message to the people in power that “Jaati Dhongkhi” Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 will not be accepted by the people of Assam, the Centre has passed the Bill in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Although the Congress has shown a little aggression in the beginning, they later managed to escape from the scene by leaving the Parliamentary session. This instead gave an opportunity to the BJP party to pass the Bill in the Lok Sabha.

If the strength of the parties is concerned in the Rajya Sabha, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) owns 73 seats. And the parties that opposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill are Indian National Congress (INC) at owns 50 seats, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) 13 seats, Janata Dal-United JD (U) 6 seats, Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M) 5 seats, Shiv Sena (SS ) 3 seats, Communist Party of India (CPI ) 2 seats which bring out a total of 79 seat that make a majority.

If this majority do not turn down and walk out of the Rajya Sabha session and make an appeal to the other members of the Rajya Sabha, this can make a major impact to the need of 2/3^rd requirement of votes for prohibiting the amendment of the Bill.

It all depends now what step these members do. The question is will the Congress walk out again making excuse or appeal for voting to oppose it in the Parliament?