SHILLONG: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) issue, though not vociferously highlighted in the ongoing campaign in three election-bound states—Tripura, Nagaland, and Meghalaya—remains active in the entire northeast region even after over three years of passing the law and the on-off agitations against it. The All Assam Students Union (AASU), the North East Students Organization (NESO), and several other organizations, along with the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M)-led Left parties, are strongly opposing the CAA. The leaders of AASU and NESO said that as their organisations are apolitical bodies, they did not highlight the CAA issue in the poll-bound states, while the Congress and the CPI-M also largely remained silent on this issue. However, some local parties, including the influential tribal-based Tipra Motha Party (TMP), highlighted the objections against the CAA during the election campaign in Tripura."The TMP, which has been demanding the upgrade of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) into a full-fledged state, promised to pass a resolution against the CAA within 150 days if the party comes to power in Tripura after the February 16 Assembly elections. TMP chief and former royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman, while announcing its 15-point agenda, Mission 15 for 150 days, for the assembly elections, said: "We want people irrespective of any religion and caste to live in Tripura. "We will pass a resolution against the CAA." "Just as in one country there cannot be two laws, similarly, one country cannot have a law that bars Muslims, Hindus, tribals, and others." Deb Barman, who was the president of the Tripura Pradesh Congress, quit the party in 2019 after differences with the central leaders over CAA. He also filed a case in the Supreme Court against the CAA."Deb Barman's father, Kirit Bikram Debbarman, was the Congress MP from Tripura, and his mother, Bibhu Kumari Devi, was a minister in the Congress led coalition government (1988–1993). The AASU and the NESO had also earlier filed cases against the CAA in the Supreme Court."Speaking to IANS, NESO chairman Samuel B. Jyrwa said that though they are not making the CAA an issue in the election bound states, they would fight against the law both on the ground and in the courts.
On December 11, last year, the AASU and the NESO observed the third anniversary of the passage of the law in Parliament as a "black day" across the northeastern region."The NESO, which is a conglomerate of eight student organisations from seven northeastern states, including the AASU, has been spearheading the agitations across the region since the BJP-led central government moved the law in Parliament in November-December 2019. In Assam, which was the epicentre of the anti-CAA protests in 2019, the AASU held memorial gatherings on December 11 last year at different places and offered floral tributes to the five people who were killed in firing during the agitations three years ago. AASU president Utpal Sharma said they won't accept the CAA as it is against the indigenous people and genuine citizens of India. The anti-CAA protests had first started in Assam, parts of West Bengal, and other northeastern states in 2019 and continued until 2020 before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic."The CAA seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians – who have migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014, in order to escape religious persecution.It was passed by both houses of parliament and given presidential assent in December 2019. However, rules under the CAA are yet to be framed."Besides the CAA, the NESO has been agitating, demanding the complete scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, providing constitutional safeguards to the indigenous communities, and the imposition of an Inner Line Permit (ILP) to protect the indigenous people in all northeastern states.(IANS)
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