On Tuesday, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, announced that he would resign if a citizen was granted citizenship without registering with the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
His statement comes a day after demonstrations erupted across Assam against the BJP government’s implementation of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), which cleared the way for the granting of 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 NRC gets citizenship, I will be the first to resign”, the CM claimed.
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The demonstrators claimed that lakhs of people will enter the state after the implementation of the CAA.
As a counter-attack, Biswa said, ” If this happens, I will be the first to protest,”
The chief minister stated that the CAA is not new because it was already enacted and that “now is the time for application on the portal.”
Biswa added, “The data on the portal will speak now, and it will become clear whether the claims of those opposing the Act are factually correct or not. ”
After the successful implementation of the act, the central government will start granting Indian nationality to the oppressed non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who came to India before 31 December 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.
