Will Citizenship Bill put paid to BJP’s Mission Northeast?

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 that was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8 may severely compromise the BJP’s hopes of capturing at least 21 of the 25 seats in northeastern India, as claimed earlier by party president Amit Shah.

With a bunch of crafty alliances in the states of the northeast under the umbrella of North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the BJP has, in the last two and a half years, managed to gain a toehold in the region where it had always been an also-ran. Now that grip is under threat. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), with 14 seats out of 126 Assembly seats in Assam, has been the first one to pull out of NEDA. BJP lost its spokesperson Mehdi Alam Bora who resigned from the party soon after the Bill was passed in Lok Sabha.

The Bill, which seeks to provide citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jains and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan has angered the NEDA allies in the states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland too. It however does not include Muslim migrants from the above-mentioned countries.

In Mizoram, the newly-elected Mizo National Front (MNF) government of Zoramthanga is also opposing the Bill. Zoramthanga said, “The Bill is an attempt to make illegal migrants eligible for Indian citizenship on the basis of religion.” He added that the Bill is against the principle of secularism.

Parties like People’s Representation for Identity and Status of Mizoram (PRISM) along with influential NGOs such as Young Mizo Association, are also strongly opposed to the Bill.

In Nagaland, Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC) is against the Bill. Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, leader of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), also a part of NEDA, has called for a review of the Bill. It has also convened an all-party meet to discuss the Bill in details.

The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) which teamed up with the BJP in the last Asmebly election has not only called for withdrawal of the Bill but has raised a case for revision of the citizens’ register to safeguard the state’s demography. Despite Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s assertion that there was no need for it, IPFT was far from convinced and instead hinted at breaking away from NEDA and going back to its secessionist demand for the separate state of Twiparaland. Even the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), the other tribal party in the state, has called for withdrawal of the Bill.