Shillong Jan 11: The Meghalaya Pradesh Youth Congress staged a demonstration infront of the Bharatiya Janata Party office at Tura in Garo Hills on Friday in protest against the passing of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in Lok Sabha recently.

The protest was led by MPYC president Richard Marak and other Youth Congress leaders where more than 200 Youth Congress workers joined the protest.

Effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president, Amit Shah were also burnt infront of the BJP office at Tura.

Marak termed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill a “communally-motivated humanitarianism”.

“The new law will give incentive to further immigration leading to the Northeast indigenous communities being reduced to a minority,” Marak said.

“The BJP’s hypocrisy and dangerous politics is brought to the fore when one considers the provisions of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the Assam Accord, and the NRC and aligns them with what the BJP professes to be its promises. The goals of NRC and the Bill are mutually exclusive, but this hasn’t stopped the BJP from taking a contradictory stand,” he said.

Stating that present updating of NRC was borne out of the provisions of the Assam Accord and the insertion of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, he said that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, however, negates both the Assam Accord and Section 6A, and thus makes redundant the entire exercise of updating the NRC.”

“The aim of the Accord is to identity, delete, and deport illegal immigrants who have entered India illegally post the agreed upon cut-off date of March 24, 1971. The Accord does not differentiate between illegal migrants on the basis of their religion. Thus the Bill comes into direct conflict with this agreement by allowing illegal migrants of certain religions citizenship. It is interesting to note that the Bill itself quite clearly uses the phrase ‘illegal migrant,’ thereby ensuring that the State is not only aware of their

illegal entry into India, but will condone it on the basis of their religion complicating the situation even further. Earlier in 2015 and 2016, the Central government issued two notifications exempting Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014 from deportation or imprisonment even if they have entered or stayed on in India without valid documents. This notification, at the crux of it, already allows for what the Bill stands for. The passing of this Bill also exposes the hidden agenda of the BJP, the formation of a Hindu Rashtra. This is nothing but vote bank politics,” Marak said in a statement

The Youth Congress leader urged all members of the BJP who think about the future of children to quit the party. “Unless we have a BJP free North East, BJP will finish us. Now is the right time, if you think about doing so in the future, it will be too late,” he said.

Marak also alleged that the state has a Chief Minister (Conrad K Sangma) who is voiceless against his political masters.

“Even in the past, against Good Governance Day and Digital India Day, he was silent. All his press releases about withdrawing from NEDA and association with the BJP are nothing but empty threats. As is the case with him, it is all talk and no action. And if we wait and watch, we will see him prove that he is spineless against his political masters, the BJP. Neither is he performing upto the standard on all fronts as wanted of the Chief Minister of a state,” Marak said.