If passed, the bill will allow Indian citizenship to illegal Hindu migrants dropped from NRC, says the former Assam CM.
New Delhi: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) will pull out of the BJP-led ruling alliance in Assam if the latter goes ahead with the controversial citizenship bill, party leader and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has said.
The 65-year-old politician was in conversation with ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk The Talk show.
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Since its introduction in 2016, the AGP has been vociferously protesting against the bill that seeks to grant citizenship rights to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The bill has already invited wrath from various groups in Assam, where the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), aimed at identifying illegal immigrants, especially from Bangladesh, was released last month.
Stating that the Assamese people will become a minority in their own land if the government decides to pass the bill, Mahanta said, “It will be a dangerous thing for the people of Assam.”
Referring to the 40 lakh names that did not figure in the final draft of the NRC, Mahanta expressed fears that if the bill is passed, the Hindu migrants among those 40 lakh will automatically get Indian citizenship.
Maintaining AGP’s protest against the bill as a fight for secularism, Mahanta, a former student leader, said: “India is a secular country and citizenship should not be conferred on the basis of religion.”
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AGP-BJP ties
The AGP that had won only 14 out of 126 seats in the 2016 assembly election is a junior partner in the BJP-led government with three of its MLAs serving as ministers in the Sarbananda Sonowal-led cabinet.
Mahanta pointed out a few specific reasons to indicate why many in the AGP are not happy with the BJP leadership.
He said ahead of 2016 state elections, the BJP had promised to take concrete steps to address the issue of illegal immigrants in Assam. However, the same year, the party introduced the citizenship bill.
In addition, the BJP had promised implementation of provisions of the Assam Accord that stressed, among other issues, on the development of the northeastern region. However, there has been no initiative by the party to bring forth any changes, Mahanta claimed.
“Earlier too, the demand for a coordination committee to facilitate communication among alliance partners was ignored by the BJP,” Mahanta added.
The road ahead
Mahanta said the AGP that was borne out of the six-year-long Assam Agitation against illegal migration will continue to fight for the people of the state.
He also urged West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to undertake the NRC exercise and drive out ‘illegal immigrants’ from her state.
Meanwhile, the AGP has decided to contest the upcoming panchayat elections alone. The party is, however, yet to take a call on the 2019 parliamentary elections.
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