Citizenship to migrants during Cong rule: BJP on CAA

The BJP on Saturday told a huge gathering here that the post-1971 migrants in Assam, who would be allowed to apply for Indian citizenship through Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, had entered India during the Congress' rule.

"These people did not come to India during the BJP's rule but had come to India when Congress was in power. These people have been suffering a lot due to the citizenship crisis. A small child's admission in school has been stalled as he is not an Indian citizen and they can not even claim benefit of government schemes. When we are trying to address these people's crisis, the Congress is spreading misinformation for politics. Let their leader (Rahul Gandhi) speak a few sentences on CAA. He can only raise slogans but can't talk on why they are against it," senior BJP leader JP Nadda said at a rally here.

The rally was organised simultaneously when organisations opposed to CAA in Assam addressed another protest rally at Nehrubali in Nagaon district, about 100 km away.

The organisations demand that Assam be exempted from CAA's purview as it would give citizenship to large number of post-1971 Hindu foreigners and thereby reduce the state's ethnic communities into minorities and endanger their identity, language and culture.

At the anti-CAA rally, general secretary of All Assam Students' Union Lurinjyoti Gogoi said, "BJP wants to give citizenship to the Hindu migrants only to divide the people on the basis of religion for votes. But Assam will not accept a single post-1971 migrant, be it Hindu or Muslim. All foreigners must be detected with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off as promised in the Assam Accord of 1985."

Assam minister and BJP's strategist in the Northeast, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that not more than five lakh people, who migrated to Assam after 1971, would get citizenship through CAA.

"But the Congress and other organisations are spreading false information that more than one crore people will come. If one more than five lakh gets citizenship through CAA, I will quit politics," said Sarma, who addressed the BJP rally here before Nadda.

The BJP would carry out a door-to-door campaign from January 7 to 11 across Assam to counter the "misinformation" being spread by Congress and others regarding CAA.

But Gogoi said that people in Assam were looking for an alternative political party ahead of next year's Assembly polls as the Congress protected foreigners, BJP is giving citizenship to the Hindu foreigners and Asom Gana Parishad is part of the BJP-led government.

"The BJP will give a fitting reply politically to those who are dreaming to become chief minister or ministers by using CAA. The BJP will again form government with at least 100 (out of 126) seats," Sarma said.