Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's statement that the CAA was not necessary led the anti-CAA protesters in Assam allege that the Citizenship Act was amended only to protect Hindu vote bank politics of the ruling BJP.
Adviser of influential All Assam Students' Union (AASU), Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharjya said on Monday that even as BJP was claiming that CAA was required to provide citizenship relief to the Hindu migrants, who faced religious persecution, Hasina's statement made it clear that there was no such persecution in the neighbouring country.
"Bangladesh is a friendly country and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi should reply to Hasina's statement that the CAA is not necessary. Also even as BJP had earlier said that the CAA was for the victims of religious persecution, BJP leaders are now saying that the proof of persecution was not necessary to apply for Indian citizenship in Assam. This proves that the CAA was amended only to protect the Hindu vote bank of BJP," Bhattacharjya said at an anti-CAA rally at Mangaldoi in Darrang district.
Stating that the CAA was an internal matter of India, Hasina on Sunday said it was not necessary.
AASU and several organisations have been leading the anti-CAA agitation as it seeks to offer citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan till 2014. Organisations fear that the amended act would reduce the indigenous communities in Assam into minorities by giving citizenship to a large number of Hindu Bengali migrants from Bangladesh, who illegally entered Assam after 1971. The state also witnessed violent protests on December 11 when a bill to amend the Citizenship Act was passed.
The AASU and several organisations demand that the "illegal migrants" in Assam must be detected with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date as promised in the Assam Accord of 1985.