Although the final draft to be tabled in the Lok Sabha today has not been made publicly available yet, the few main provisions of the Citizenship Amendment bill (CAB) are known to all; these include provision of citizenship to persons belonging to Non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India due to religious persecution in their home countries and exceptions have been created for states with Inner Line Permit and such other provisions.
A day before the divisive bill is set to be tabled in the Lok Sabha, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury at a press conference in Delhi, said that his party will move two amendments to the Bill when it will be introduced in Lok Sabha. One amendment is concerned with the removal of religion as basis of granting citizenship. The second concern is inclusion of people from only 3 countries, while there are countries like Sri Lanka and Myanmar that also need to be considered.
Sabrang India had recently reported on how the government has ignored the 1 lakh Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka who had fed the civil war in the 1980s, in considering grant of citizenship to refugees/immigrants.
While addressing the press conference, Yechury said, “Citizenship cannot be linked to religion of an individual. It has to be religion neutral. We will move amendments for deletion of names of religions and to replace the names of the countries by ‘neighbouring’ countries.” Yechury further said that India is a home equally for all religions and that people of all religions must get equal treatment. He further added that the government is implementing M A Jinnah’s two nation theory through CAB
CPI(M)’s party leader from Kashmir, Yousuf Tarigami said that the Kashmiris accepted India as their nation because of tis secular nature but this bill abrogates the secular nature completely.
The party has been against CAB since its inception and has said on previous occasions publicly that BJP wants to create a reign of fear and distrust across the country through NRC and CAB and that BJP is set to destroy the secular fabric of the country that it has upheld for the longest time.
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900 scientists & scholars oppose CAB, 2019