Politics puts core issues on back burner: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Protest against CAA

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: State Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that with politics taking the centrestage in the ongoing protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), vital issues concerning the Act have been put on the back burner.

Talking to the media here on Thursday, Sarma said, “In most of the cases, the protests against the CAA have taken the shape of an ‘Oust-BJP’ agitation. The Government has always been ready for talks with the organizations agitating against the CAA. However, they’re leaving no room for talks by politicizing the issue. It seems, with politics taking the centrestage in the protests against the CAA, the core issues of the Act like framing rules have been put on the back burner.”

Sarma added, “What are they protesting against? Even the rules of the Act have not been framed as yet. Such a campaign against the Act has no basis. Now the Act only says that such and such foreigners should be accorded Indian citizenship. The picture is far from clear as to how such foreigners will be accorded Indian citizenship. The rules that are going to be framed under the Act are to make it crystal clear as to how the persecuted Hindu Bangladeshis will get India citizenship. Only after the framing of rules, it will be clear as to what information and documents are required for getting Indian citizenship by a foreigner to be benefited under the CAA.”

The Minister further said, “Speakers at the anti-CAA rallies are feeding the audience with their own concocted theories and rules on the CAA. They are also giving astronomical figures on the number of Hindu Bangladeshis to be benefited under the Act. Time and again, we’ve made it clear that not more than five lakh Hindu Bangladeshis will get Indian citizenship in the State under the CAA, and that there won’t be any newcomer from Bangladesh.”

“We, the Chief Minister and I, are going to have a discussion on framing rules of the CAA with Union Home Minister Amit Shah this evening,” Sarma said, and added, “It makes sense to mention that when the March 25, 1971 cut-off date for the detection and deportation of foreigners from the State was agreed, none had taken the people of the State into confidence on the issue. On the contrary, the present Government took the people of the State into confidence before bringing the CAB that has now become an Act. The people of the State accepted it, and voted us to power.”

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