With an eye on the Hindu Bengali vote bank in Assam’s Barak Valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that the BJP will bring back the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, if voted to power.
While electioneering in Silchar today, the Prime Minister said that the Citizenship Bill will be brought back albeit with some amendments to ensure that “no one is subjected to injustice due to the Bill”.
Modi addressed two rallies in Assam today – at Silchar in Barak Valley and at Kendukona in Mangaldai Lok Sabha Constituency.
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Interestingly, the firebrand leader sang two different tunes in Brahmaputra and Barak Valley – he did not mention a word about the Citizenship Bill in the Mangaldai poll meet but in Silchar, the ‘Bill’ issue dominated his speech.
“We are committed to bring back the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. However, we are going to take everyone into confidence to ensure that injustice is not done due to implementation of the Bill,” he said.
Modi said that Congress was responsible for the Partition of the country in 1947 and “it is for those leaders that some people have become foreigners in their own country”.
There was huge rage in Brahmaputra Valley over the NDA government’s move to pass the Citizenship Bill in January this year.
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With the BJP including the Citizenship Bill in its party manifesto which was released recently, the various students’ bodies and civil society organisations in Brahmaputra Valley have decided to start fresh agitation against the Bill.
The firebrand leader added that the government is “equally committed to pass the Triple Talaq bill and the ‘mahamilawat gatbandhan’ of the Congress, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) and several other parties cannot stop the daughters of the country from getting justice”.
The PM made a veiled hint that there was a ‘Modi wave’ in the country once again a la 2014. He was cocksure that the BJP and its allies were going to win from all the five Lok Sabha seats in Assam which went to polls today. Modi made a fervent appeal to the voters in Barak Valley to exercise their suffrage in favour of the saffron party.