In U-turn, ex-Congress leader now backs citizenship bill

GUWAHATI: Eight months ago, Bhubaneswar Kalita had walked out of a Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting after it adopted the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. On Sunday, the former Congress chief whip in the Rajya Sabha who recently switched to BJP said the bill is no longer a contentious issue in Assam.
"Considering the mandate BJP got (in the Lok Sabha election), I don't think the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is a relevant issue in Assam now.The bill was on BJP's poll manifesto and it still won in a big way," Kalita said at the BJP headquarters here. Kalita was felicitated by state BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass at an event attended by Union minister of state for food processing Rameswar Teli and state irrigation minister Bhabesh Kalita.
Over the past year, the BJP government faced protests in Assam and the northeast over its attempts to push the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill through. The proposed amendment would grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Migration from Bangladesh has been a contentious subject in the region and the bill was seen by many groups as an attempt to legitimize illegal migrants and introduce religion into an already incendiary mix of identity politics.
The Centre had formed a Joint Parliamentary Committee to hold hearings on the bill to gauge public sentiment. Kalita was a member of the panel and one of the strongest opponents of the amendment. "The northeast is burning," the 67-year-old leader had said at the time, referring to protests against the bill.
Denouncing Congress as a "leaderless party", Kalita said he left the party after a four-decade association because he found himself supporting many steps taken by the BJP-led government at the Centre.
"I saw how the country marched ahead under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last five years. Despite being in the opposition, I personally supported many decisive steps taken by the Centre, like the triple talaq bill," he said. The final catalyst was the party's stand on Article 370 and Kalita being asked to issue a whip against diluting its provisions. "The entire country's sentiment was in favour of abrogation. Even I support abrogation. How could I issue a whip against it when the matter was not discussed within the party?" he added.
Kalita resigned from the Rajya Sabha on August 5, the day the Rajya Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the J&K Reorganisation Bill, 2019 by revoking the special status for the state under Article 370. He joined BJP in New Delhi on August 9.