From CK Nayak
NEWDELHI: Former Chief Minister and leader of the Opposition Mukul Sangma came down heavily on the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill even with some changes and said that if passed, it will create great social upheaval in the sensitive Northeastern region.
Talking to The Shillong Times, Sangma, who participated in the meeting on Thursday with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, insisted that all political parties and civil societies in the hill state have adopted a unanimous resolution opposing the CAB in any form.
“This resolution should be accepted in full, he added.
Sangma reiterated that if the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill comes into effect even with changes, it will lead to demographic change of the North East region as the “foreigners” staying across India will move to the region for settlement.
“It will cause ethnic conflict since most of the “foreigners” coming from Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries in Northeast will pour into the region because of linguistic, ethnic and cultural similarity,” he warned.
“Most of those who were foreigners and were staying in Assam have already migrated to various parts of India. You do not know how many foreigners are staying in the country and out of them how many are eligible to get citizenship if the CAB comes into force,” said Sangma.
The Centre has not conducted any study as to how many foreigners will be eligible for Indian citizenship if the CAB is passed and what will be the cut off year, the former chief minister said.
There is already confusion over the cut off year as per Assam Accord and the NRC cut off year, he said adding that the CAB will add further confusion and undo the Assam Accord.
”If the bill is passed, it will result in a huge floating population which will affect the whole country but mostly the North East due to demographic similarities and size of the population on this part of the country”, Sangma said.
According to the former chief minister, on the one hand the government is trying to figure out how many foreigners have infiltrated into the country and on the other hand, legislation like CAB will help unspecified number of foreigners to come to India, he added.
“They (floating population) are likely to gravitate in Northeastern state and dilute the whole demography of the region. hey will not gravitate in Rajasthan or Maharashtra,” he added.