Citizenship Amendment Bill put on hold for now
Due to under pressure from allies
New Delhi: Under tremendous pressure from its own allies Janta Dal (United) led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Akali Dal of Punjab, the government decided on Thursday not to go ahead with the controversial Citizenship amendment bill 2016 in Rajya Sabha.
Apart from allies Chief ministers of all the north-eastern states also were not in favour of this bill. Most of the chief ministers came to Delhi to meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday to express their concern. The bill envisages granting citizenship to the non-Muslim community of neighbouring countries who would come to India for shelter.
The bill passed in the Lok Sabha in the last winter session of the Parliament is supposed to be brought in the Upper House of the Parliament for passage to make it a law. The Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday morning called a meeting of the all floor leaders to discuss the proposed legislation. In the meeting most of the leaders present opposed to bringing the controversial bill in this session of the Parliament. After deliberation, the Chairman of the house listed six bills for discussion in the house in the current session. In the list, no mention of Citizenship amendment bill is there.
The bills to be taken up in Rajya Sabha during the current Session are the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2019 to replace Ordinance; the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018; the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2018; the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre Bill, 2019; the Personal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
If Rajya Sabha does not pass the Citizenship amendment bill which was already passed in the Lok Sabha will lapse automatically. This is the last session before the general election of the Lok Sabha. Once the election is announced the bill as passed by the Lok Sabha will face natural death.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday called all Chief ministers of the North Eastern states. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonwal (BJP) and Mizoram Chief minister Zoramthanga (ally) did not come for the meeting as they were also opposing the bill. Other Chief Ministers - Biplob Dev of Tripura, Biren Singh of Manipur, Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya, and Arunachal's Prema Khandu did come for the meeting. But realising the mood of these Chief ministers, Home minister finally cancelled the meeting.
The Lok Sabha would discuss the motion of thanks to the President speech on Monday and Tuesday and thereafter house would take up Budget. In Thursday's Business advisory committee meeting, no other issues were taken up.
Also on Thursday, Home minister Rajnath Singh invited TMC MPs to discuss the proposed bill. TMC leader Sudip Bandopadhyay, Kalyan Banerjee, Subrata Buxi and Dinesh Trivedi met Home minister in the Chamber in the Parliament House. In the meeting, the Home minister indicated that they were not bringing the bill as TMC was not supporting. He also discussed with them about the violence occurred after the recent meeting of the BJP party President Amit Shah in West Bengal.
TMC leaders assured the Home minister that no violence would occur but asked the minister to advise BJP leaders not to indulge in violent activities as some of them did after the Shah's meeting, like burning down of a local TMC office and photograph of their leader Mamata Banerjee.
