Cong submits CAB, NRC report to Sonia

NEWDELHI: All the Congress units in northeast are firmly opposed to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and have urged the leadership to formulate a strong stand on the twin issues, according to a report submitted to party chief Sonia Gandhi.

“The NRC and the CAB would destabilise the decades-old multi-ethnic, mixed-religion and multilingual society existing in northeastern states,” according to the report prepared by a sixmember Congress team after its visit to the region.

The team was deputed by Sonia Gandhi to take feedback from the ground on the NRC and the CAB, and help the party formulate its stand on the twin issues both in and outside Parliament. The team comprised Mukul Wasnik, Jairam Ramesh, Jitendra Singh, Manickam Tagore, Mohammad Ali Khan and Ranajit Mukherjee. She was keen to clear the confusion within the party ranks. There had been differences in stances taken by different state units of the Congress in the northeast and at the national level.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been trying to divide, polarise and destabilise the integrated northeast society through the NRC and the CAB, the report further added.

Barring the party’s district committee in Assam’s Silchar,

the NRC and the CAB was opposed by all state units in the northeast, a team member said on condition of anonymity.

The government is likely to table the CAB in the coming week in Parliament. The bill aims to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.