Bihar Assembly Election 2020: Nitish Kumar clears air on citizenship law, rubbishes talk of evicting citizens out of country

On Wednesday, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar during his rallies before the third and final phase of assembly election in the state dismissed concerns among a section of society that some people might be deported out of the country in the event of Centre’s implementation of new citizenship laws. He said that such concerns are a ‘rubbish talk’ by those who are trying to “divide” the society.

“Who is spreading misinformation through such ‘phaalatoo baat’ (rubbish talk). Nobody has the courage to evict any citizen out of the country,” Kumar said while addressing public rallies in Kishanganj and Araria districts which comprise a significant number of those belonging to the minority communities.

Amid the nationwide protests earlier this year and in 2019 over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and an all India National Register of Citizens (NRC), the chief minister asserted that a nationwide implementation of NRC was needless and had no justification.

Earlier, while peaking in the Bihar legislative assembly in January, Kumar said that NRC was an exercise confined to Assam as part of the accord signed by the Rajiv Gandhi government.

“A nationwide NRC would be needless and has no justification. We do not think any such thing is going to take place. I think the Prime Minister, too, has spoken clearly on this,” he said in January.

Meanwhile, targeting the opposition parties indirectly during his rallies, Kumar said some people want to promote fight between castes and religious groups and added his government has always worked for all sections of society and promoted communal harmony in Bihar.

Bihar witnessed polling in 94 constituencies across 17 districts in second phase on Tuesday. Data by the Election Commission of India (ECI) showed a voter turnout of over 53%.

Polling for the third and final phase will happen on November 7 in 78 constituencies. Counting of votes and declaration of results for all three phases will be on November 10.

(With PTI inputs)