SHILLONG: Former chief minister Mukul Sangma was accused by his rivals and party rebels of being a dictator and silencing voices which spoke against him. The same accusation was hurled by one of his party colleagues at none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday for ignoring views on and protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
Congress legislator Ampareen Lyngdoh drew analogy between the behaviour of Adolf Hitler and Modi while vehemently opposing the move of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to approve the Citizenship Amendment Bill in its present form.
“It is not a Hitler regime where one man can sit and decide everything,” she said.
The former minister also predicted the BJP-led NDA’s doomsday post the Lok Sabha election this year and that voters will teach the national alliance a lesson.
The NPP, which is the ruling alliance member in Meghalaya, is part of the NDA as well as the North East Democratic Alliance headed by Assam minister Himanta Biswa.
After the JPC nod to the bill, all eyes are now on the Centre whether it will bring the bill to the Lok Sabha on January 7. The winter session is set to end on January 8.
Stating that everyone in the North East, including the Meghalaya government, is against the Bill, Lyngdoh said “the sudden ideas of the Centre like the controversial amendment bill should be thoroughly examined”.
She warned in anticipation that the bill would “create huge problems in the North East”.
Lyngdoh also pointed out that the JPC members did not invite her in the capacity of a legislator during their visit to Shillong.
“Delhi cannot decide everything and one JPC’s one sitting with stakeholders to discuss the bill is not sufficient. The NDA at the Centre has this habit of ignoring the sentiments of the states and the federal structure of the country must be respected by them,” she added.
It may be recalled that the state Cabinet had vehemently opposed the bill. Apart from NGOs, even Shillong MP Vincent Pala had expressed his opposition.
The bill seeks to grant citizenship to people from minority communities in countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India without proper document.
Muslims are a notable omission from the list on the ground that they constitute the majority communities in the three neighbouring nations.
