Contentious citizenship bill set to be tabled today
NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah will on Monday introduce the contentious citizenship (amendment) bill in the Lok Sabha, a move that is likely to trigger parliamentary showdown over the draft legislation that proposes Indian citizenship for nonMuslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The bill proposes to give citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians if they entered India from the three nearby countries on or before December 31, 2014.
North-eastern student organisations, civil society groups and opposition parties have been protesting the government’s move, saying it will lead to an influx of religious minorities and hurt the interests of indigenous communities in the region.
The Union Cabinet cleared the bill last week, fulfilling a key election promise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but several opposition parties said they continue to oppose the draft bill, which they said linked citizenship to religion and therefore violated the Constitution.
The Congress’s parliamentary strategy group held a meeting at party president Sonia Gandhi’s residence and decided to strongly protest against the bill in Parliament. “The Congress will oppose the citizenship amendment bill tooth and nail in Parliament as it is against the country’s Constitution, secular ethos, tradition, culture and civilisation,” the Congress’s leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said after the meeting concluded.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said his party will move two amendments on the bill when it is introduced in the Lok Sabha. “We strongly oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill which gives citizenship on the basis of religion, that also to people from three countries,” Yechury said. He said that India is home equally to all religions and that people of all religions must get equal treatment.
On Sunday, a protest against the bill turned violent when a group of people in Dibrugarh vandalised an office of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), an ally of BJP in the Assam. Sixteen organisations have called for a 12-hour bandh in the state on December 10 to protest against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
People in the region strongly opposed a previous version of the bill earlier this year. The protesters feel that the draft bill will dilute the Assam Accord that promises deportation of any illegal foreigners who arrived after March 24, 1971, a day before the war of liberation in Bangladesh began.
The government has said the draft bill is aimed at three goals: equity, accountability and innovation; and that the bill will apply to those people “who were forced or compelled to seek shelter in India due to persecution on the ground of religion or fear of such persecution in his country”.