New Delhi: With over 25 actors and singers, who were in the forefront of the agitation against Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in Assam last year, now with the BJP, it only exposes the “false narrative” spread about the law, Silchar BJP MP Dr Rajdeep Roy said.
In an interview to ThePrint, he said the protests in Assam died a natural death, and the law seems to have become West Bengal-centric now.
The artistes who have joined the BJP include actor Jatin Bora, singers Simanta Shekhar and Vidyasagar, Kallol Borthakur, Nayan Nirban (from Congress) and Baikuntha Prince, among others.
“They have openly come and joined the BJP. It’s a loss of face for the people who are opposing us. How long will you carry on a false narrative?” Roy said.
The first-time MP from Silchar also said the BJP has not put the CAA on the backburner but will take it to its logical conclusion, by giving safety, security and citizenship under Indian laws to the persecuted class of citizens coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, as desired by the party and its founders.
Roy’s assertion comes at a time when the BJP is perceived to have gone silent on the CAA, ahead of Assam assembly elections likely to be held in April. “BJP is committed to its ideological position of giving protection in the form of citizenship to persecuted people from the three countries,” he said.
Though the NDA government passed the CAA in December 2019, the rules to operationalise the law are yet to be framed.
During his recent visit to Assam, Roy said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reiterated that his government is committed to protecting the rights of the people who stay in the state.
Also read: Not West Bengal, but it’s the Assam polls that is most crucial for Modi-Shah this year
Roy petitioned SC in 2012 on citizenship for the persecuted
Unknown to many, the Barak Valley MP is the one who had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court way back in 2012 seeking grant of citizenship to the persecuted class coming from Bangladesh.
“CAA was not an issue back then. I petitioned the SC when the government in Delhi and Dispur were run by the Congress and I was not sure when we would come to power,” said Roy, who comes from a family of BJP leaders.
His father, Bimalangshu Roy, was a Jana Sangh corporator. He had been a BJP MLA for 10 years — from 1996 to 2006 — and started talking about the need for citizenship from 2003 onwards.
It was a year after his father’s death in 2009 that Roy entered active politics and joined the BJP. “I did a lot of research on CAA, spoke to people on the ground and party leaders in the state before filing the petition. Between 2012 and 2015, we had around 50 hearings,” he said.
Roy’s petition did not involve the persecuted class coming from Pakistan and Afghanistan, though. “Receiving my petition, the court observed that this class of people don’t exist in Assam alone. If you have to make a law, the law has to be made for the entire country,” he said.
Following this, the apex court directed the chief secretaries of 18 states to give a deposition in writing within the timeframe of four months, Roy said, adding that no other state other than Uttarakhand, Assam, Tripura, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh responded.
Roy decided to push the case further after that.
“In 2014, after Modi ji’s government came to power, I made several trips to Delhi to meet Rajnath Singh ji, who was the home minister. Then we got a delegation of Barak Valley BJP leaders. We had talks with various senior leaders,” he said.
The first breakthrough came in September 2015, he said, when the Centre issued two gazette notifications exempting Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 from the provisions of rules under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and the Foreigners Act, 1946.
The notification said they won’t be treated as foreign nationals or infiltrators if they don’t possess these documents or after their expiry.
Things started moving after this, Roy said.
In 2016, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was introduced in Parliament. The Lok Sabha passed it in January 2019. It was pending in the Rajya Sabha when the 16th Lok Sabha was dissolved, and the Bill lapsed.
The Bill was reintroduced when the 17th Lok Sabha was constituted. It was finally passed by both Houses of Parliament in December 2019. However, rules to operationalise the CAA are yet to be framed by the home ministry.
Also read: Why Congress is walking tightrope on CAA: Fiercely against it in Assam but muted in Bengal
‘NRC has not backfired’
Roy insisted the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was published in August 2019 to identify illegal immigrants from resident Indians, has not “backfired”.
In fact, it’s the first time after the BJP came to power in 2014 that funds were granted for NRC work, the MP said, adding that the only thing the party is upset about is the list that came out.
“If you analyse the list, you will see that in border districts more people have got into NRC, very few people are outside the list. Whereas in central districts of Assam, majority of people are not in the list. Percentage is considerably more than the border districts.”
Roy said they suspect some amount of foul play has gone in the list that has been prepared.
“That is why they have asked for a 20% review of the list in the border areas and 10% review in the central districts. The Supreme Court has given us time to file our reply. The state government is in the process of preparing that,” he said.
“If the review can prove that (any foul play), we will probably have to redo the list,” Roy added.
When the updated NRC list was announced in August 2019, at least 19 lakh out of the over 3.29 crore applicants were excluded. Many of those who could not find their name in the list are Hindus.
BJP is targeting 100+ Assam seats with allies
The BJP’s main poll plank in Assam is development, according to Roy.
“BJP will come to power based on the development work (in Assam) that has been done by the Modi government at the Centre for the last six years and the Sarbananda Sonowal government for the last four years,” said the MP, who is also one of the state BJP general secretaries.
He said the BJP is targeting to win 100-plus seats with allies in the 126-seat assembly.
“The opposition does not have any issue in the state. Their only issue is ‘come, let’s block BJP’. Their slogan is Assam Bachao (Save Asam). Now tell me, from whom do they want to save Assam?” Roy asked.
This report has been updated to correct an inaccuracy that singer Zubin Garg was among the singers who have joined the BJP.
Also read: Why PM Modi referred to Assam’s ‘mool niwasi’ 7 times in his speech but skipped CAA
Please remove Zubeen Garg name from this list. Or else face Legal Action. Your leftist agendas will not run for too long. Very low quality news report