New Delhi :
The Rajya Sabha passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill on Wednesday after close to eight hours of debate. The bill was passed with 125 votes for and 105 against. The Lok Sabha had approved the draft law late on Monday night.
Home Minister Amit Shah heavily defended the bill after the Opposition tore into it, saying it would not have been necessary if there was no Partition. Shah added that if the bill had been brought in 50 years earlier,many problems would have been solved, and consistently said that it would not disturb Article 14, the Right to Equality.
The bill proposes amendments to a 1955 law to provide citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians from the Muslim-majority nations of Bangladesh, Afghanistan andPakistan. Once notified, it will grant citizenship to persecuted people fromthese communities, provided they have resided in India for six years. Thecut-off date is December 31, 2014.
Earlier in the day, Leader of Opposition in the House GhulamNabi Azad asked why the amended bill did not include countries such as Bhutan,Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Congress MP Anand Sharma said the bill went against thePreamble of the Constitution and asked the BJP to introspect following violent protests against the law in the North East. The Army was earlier deployed inAssam and Tripura amid widespread protests.
Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh also said the bill was against the Preamble of the Constitution, and against the dreams of Gandhi andBhagat Singh, while Congress’ Kapil Sibal said it was “morally reprehensible”.“Those who have no idea of India cannot protect the idea of India. Don’t convertthis Indian republic into a Jurassic republic,” Sibal said. He added that thebill gave legal colour to the two-nation theory.
Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien said the law wasdrawn from “Nazi Germany’s books”. “There is an eerie similarity between thebill and the laws pass in Nazi Germany,” he said. He attacked the Centre’s planto introduce the National Register of Citizens across India. “NRC did not workin Assam. Your pilot project failed, and now you have the gumption to tellParliament that it will be introduced across India.”
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Tiruchi Siva said if thebill was passed it would be a blow to secularism, while Congress’ P Chidambaramclaimed he was sure the bill would be struck down if approved.
Parties that did not support the bill included DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party,Communist Party of India (Marxist), Nationalist Congress Party, PeoplesDemocratic Party, Congress, Trinamool Congress, Naga People’s Front, Aam AadmiParty, Janata Dal (Secular), and YSR Congress Party. The Shiv Sena abstainedfrom voting.
‘Nothing to do with Right to Equality’
Shah told the Upper House that it was wrong to accuse theBJP of practising vote-bank politics and added that there was nearly a 20%decline in the population of religious minorities in both Pakistan andBangladesh. “Either they were killed or they fled to India for shelter,” heclaimed. Shah alleged that misinformation that the bill was against Muslims hadbeen spread.
BJP Working President JP Nadda backed Shah, saying the bill“has got nothing to do with Right to Equality or Article 14 of the Indian Constitution”.He also claimed that minorities have grown in India but have only reduced inPakistan in the last few decades