Reacting to Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) president K. Therie’s statement, ridiculing Lok Sabah MP Tokheho Yepthomi’s recent views on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the latter maintained that the issue has been misconstrued and has become a propaganda tool.
Tokheho clarified that the issue has also been wrongly put in the public domain that once CAB is passed, the entire North East region will be overrun by “crores” of immigrants waiting at the borders of neighboring countries.
“This notion is totally false and has misled a lot of people. The CAB will only grant immediate citizenship to immigrants who have entered India prior to 31 December 2014. To know the facts about the CAB we need to only look at the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on CAB, 2016,” he added.
The MP said that people who have twisted and propagated that the CAB will allow crores of refugees from neighboring countries into the Northeast India should try and comprehend the ramifications of their false notion on CAB. He asserted that the Parliament will only act within the proposed draft submitted by the empowered Committee.
Tokheho reminded that the Joint Parliamentary Committee on CAB 2016 was constituted of both Houses consisting of 30 members, 20 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha, including the Congress.
He said the JPC undertook three study visits to Jodhpur from December 18 to 20, 2016, Ahmedabad and Rajkot (from April 18 to 20, 2017) and Guwahati, Silchar and Shillong (from May 7 to 11, 2018) where informal discussions were held with migrants/NGOs/public representatives and other stakeholders to obtain firsthand knowledge.
In the 14 sittings of the JPC, Tokheho said the committee took evidence of the representatives from Home ministry, Law & Justice ministry (department of Legal Affairs and Legislative department) and External Affairs ministry on the various provisions of the Bill.
In response to the queries of the JPC– about the number of persons belonging to minority communities, who would benefit from the proposed Amendment on the basis of religious persecution, Tokheho said the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had informed them as follows: “As per our records, there are 31, 313 persons belonging to minority communities (Hindus- 25447, Sikhs- 5807, Christians- 55, Buddhists- 2 and Parsis-2) who have been given Long Term Visa on the basis of their claim of religious persecution in their respective countries and want Indian Citizenship. Hence, these persons will be immediate beneficiaries.”
On the query of those people belonging to minority communities who have come to India from the three countries under reference due to religious persecution but have not declared so at the time of their arrival in India, the IB stated that: “For other to apply for Indian Citizenship under this category, they will have to prove that they came to India due to religious persecution. If they have not declared so at the time of their arrival in India, it would be difficult for them to make such a claim now. Any future claim will be enquired into, including through R&AW before a decision is taken.”
Tokheho pointed out that the Citizenship issue was brought to the house in 2016, however the matter was referred back to the committee for further amendment. As two Congress MPs from Assam– Bhubaneswar Kalita (Rajya Sabha) and Sushmita Dev (Lok Sabha) were also part of the JPC, Thokeho asked the NPCC president to seek the details of CAB drafts presented by his party colleagues.
He further said that the state government under chief minister Neiphiu Rio held consultative meetings in January 2019 with all legislatures, NGOs and civil societies and after deliberations, resolutions were adopted to protect the people and the state.
Despite both Nagaland Congress and NPF choosing to stay away from the meeting, Thokeho said they now continue to speak about CAB to confuse the people.
Rejecting NPCC president’s presumptions once CAB is passed, Thokeho reiterated that there is no way ‘crores’ of people will be given Indian citizenship.
In this regard, Thokeho urged NPCC president to not speculate and misguide the Nagas as to what will happen in a decade without ascertaining the facts.
“As long as Nagaland state has Article 371A, no outsiders can come and stay in our houses and lands without giving them the right to do so,” he stated.