A day after protests erupted across Assam following the Centre's notification for the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said he will be the first to resign even if one person, who has not applied for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state, gets citizenship, news agency PTI reported.
The CAA, 2019 paves the way for granting citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
“I am a son of Assam and if a single person who has not applied for the NRC in the state gets citizenship, I will be the first to resign,” PTI quoted Himanta Sarma as saying on the sidelines of a programme at Sivasagar.
The protesters are claiming that lakhs of people will enter the state after the implementation of the CAA. “If this happens, I will be the first to protest,” the Assam CM said.
Protests against the implementation of the CAA erupted across Assam with effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and copies of the law being burnt, news agency PTI reported
Also Read | Political, student, indigenous groups plan protests against CAA in northeast
{{/usCountry}}Also Read | Political, student, indigenous groups plan protests against CAA in northeast
{{/usCountry}}The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) burnt the effigies of the prime minister and the home minister in Lakhimpur, while the Congress also torched copies of the law in different parts of the district to protest against the implementation of the CAA.
Sarma said those who have come to India after 2014 will not get citizenship, and the number of such applicants will be “negligible”.
“People do not want to identify themselves as foreigners. There may be 50,000-60,000 applications from three districts of Barak Valley while it will be negligible in districts of Brahmaputra Valley,” the chief minister said.
There is nothing new about the CAA as it was enacted earlier, Sarma said, adding that “now the time has come for application on the portal”.
“The data on the portal will speak now, and it will become clear whether the claims of those opposing the Act stand factually correct or not,” the Assam chief minister added.
He said the people of Assam will know in a month whether lakhs of people or a few thousand are applying for citizenship in the state.
The chief minister said he respects both the protesters and also the supporters of the CAA but “enough has been said on CAA and now it is time to prove the claims”.
“Now, it will also be clear who was responsible for the death of five people during the violent protests in 2019,” Sarma said.
With the CAA rules being issued, the central government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who came to India till December 31, 2014.
These include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians. The law could not come into effect as rules had not been notified till now.