Will Step Down Should Someone Who Hasn’t Filed for NRC Citizenship Be Granted Citizenship: Himanta
On Tuesday, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, said that he would step down first if someone who hadn’t requested to be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) gained citizenship.
His remarks follow widespread demonstrations in Assam on Monday against the BJP government’s implementation of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), which cleared the way for the naturalization of undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
On the fringes of an event in Sivasagar, the chief minister said, “I am a son of Assam and I will be the first to resign if a single person who has not applied for NRC gets citizenship.”
The demonstrators assert that when the CAA is put into effect, lakhs of individuals will be able to enter the state. “I will be the first to protest if this happens,” he said. The chief minister said that the CAA is not new since it was already implemented and that “now the time has come for application on the portal.”
“Now that the data on the portal is speaking, it will be evident whether or not the arguments made by those who are against the Act are factually accurate,” Sarma said. The federal government will now begin awarding Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India up to December 31, 2014, in accordance with the CAA regulations. These consist of Christians, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Hindus. Since regulations had not been announced until now, the legislation could not go into force.
