Congress slams BJP for refugee crisis

From our correspondent

Itagar, Oct 10: Breaking silence over the Central government’s decision to grant citizenship to the Chakmas and Hajongs, Lok Sabha member Ninong Ering said that the Centre can provide shelter to the refugees anywhere in the country but not in Aruchal Pradesh. The me Court had in 2015 asked the Centre to grant citizenship to Chakma-Hajongs.

“We have given them (Chakma-Hajongs) enough shelter in our homeland and now that the Centre has decided to grant them citizenship they should be taken away from our State,” Ering said while addressing reporters at Rajiv Bhawan here on Monday night.

The Congress MP added that he was never silent on the issue as alleged by various organisations and was constantly pursuing the matter with the government and had also written extensively to the authorities concerned in this regard.

He also felt that the matter should be solved amicably rather than giving it a political colour.

Echoing Ering, Aruchal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President Takam Sanjoy said that the Congress never had a hand in settling the refugees in State as alleged by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju.

Rijiju had a few days ago blamed the Congress for the current situation, saying that the then government had settled the refugees in Aruchal Pradesh without taking the local people into confidence.

“The BJP as well as Rijiju need to understand that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had, during 1964-65, allowed a ‘temporary’ settlement for the Chakma-Hajong refugees in Aruchal, the then North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). Moreover, the Congress government then had nowhere mentioned that the refugees would be granted citizenship. But all this changed after the BJP came to power and now they blame us,” Sanjoy said.

APCC and its parent body have always been against the settlement of Chakma-Hajongs in Aruchal. Hence, it is not the Congress but the BJP that is trying to create instability in the State and change its demography, he added.

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