From C K Nayak
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently on a whirlwind tour to the North East, is in no mood to give up the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 despite widespread protest in the region, including from his own party and by some of its alliance partners.
The All Assam Students’ Union, which is in the forefront of the protest against the bill, on Friday greeted the prime minister with black flags on his arrival in Guwahati while the Asom Gana Parishad, an ally of the ruling BJP in the state till recently, took out a torchlight procession to voice its opposition.
Modi is visiting Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura. He will be announcing a host of projects and lay foundation stones for some as pre-poll sops which the party expects will also work as a bulwark against protest.
The bill is the outcome of widespread consultations in the party for a long time and is not an individual matter, the prime minister told an MP from the region who met him recently. The cabinet has taken a decision after thorough discussions and it cannot be just given up due to protest by some parties, he told the MP, who did not want to be identified.
The prime minister’s strong mindset on the issue also became evident when he refused to even meet his own coalition partners led by none other than Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma, even while he was in Delhi; Modi gave appointments to others and carried on his routine schedule, but declined to meet Conrad on the ground of ”preoccupation.”
Modi’s cold-shouldering of Conrad had put him in an awkward position and evoked sharp criticism from several quarters, mainly the opposition Congress.
He was embarrassed since the BJP is an alliance partner in Meghalaya with one of the two party MLAs in the Cabinet.
Incidentally, both the BJP legislators – A L Hek, who is a Cabinet minister, and Sanbor Shullai, who is the Deputy Chief Whip of the ruling alliance – have also submitted a memorandum opposing the CAB. Shullai, in fact, has gone a step ahead and has threatened to quit the party if the Central leadership goes ahead with the bill.
Similar protest has come from BJP quarters from all over the region. Mizoram BJP state unit, which has close alliance with the ruling MNF led by Zoramthanga, has even threatened to dissolve the unit in the state if the CAB is made into a law.