The Congress has always been sticking to March 24 of the year 1971 as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) base but here the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has no clear stand and the party is playing foul games for vote politics.
This was stated by Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Ripun Bora in a press conference at Silchar on Saturday.
Bora even charged BJP by saying that the saffron brigade is ‘blackmailing’ Bengali Hindus on the citizenship issue.
The APCC president opined that practically there is no separate provision in the Indian Constitution to offer citizenship to the refugees.
Although somebody may appeal for citizenship, but there is no guarantee if these appeals would be considered or not, he said.
Bora further said that according to the ‘base year’ March 24, 1971 is not only acceptable to the Congress but even the BJP also honours this base year because a case is already there in Supreme Court in which the year 1951 have been advocated to take as the base year.
The BJP Government filed an affidavit against that case and stood for the year 1971. That means BJP is not interested to give citizenship to the Bengali Hindus, the Congress president added.
Bora also alleged that the BJP is only trying to create a division in the society for vote politics but ‘they will not be able to attain success’.
Bora was flanked by former minister Ajit Singh, parliamentarian and president of All India Mahila Congress Susmita Dev, MLA Rajdeep Goala and others.