SHILLONG: After the NGOs, Congress MP from Shillong Vincent Pala has now expressed his stiff opposition to the move of the Joint Parliamentary Committee to approve the draft Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, in its present form.
It may be mentioned that the JPC, which was examining the controversial bill, adopted it on Thursday amid protest by opposition MPs and the report will be tabled in the Lok Sabha on January 7.
Pala said that the Congress from the very beginning has been opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
Asserting that he is totally against the bill, he asked how a Bangladeshsi could be considered an Indian citizen.
“If the amendment bill is passed then there are strong possibilities that all Bangladeshis will turn Hindu and come into India to earn the country’s citizenship,” Pala said over telephone from New Delhi.
While terming that the decision of the BJP to bulldoze the amendment bill as ‘unfair’, he said that a Bangladeshi citizen should remain a citizen of that country.
“In the name of religion how can Bangladeshi citizens become Indian citizens,” he said even as he added that the Bangladeshis who have earned Indian citizenship might again flee to Bangladesh and re-convert to Islam after committing some nuisance here.
Pala added that it was expected that the JPC would adopt the amendment bill since majority of the members are from the BJP.
“The voice of dissent or disagreement by the opposition MPs will not be entertained in the JPC,” Pala said.
The Congress MP further said that the BJP also understands the flaws of the amendment bill but their main intention is to polarize the people.
