Stand united in opposing Citizenship (Amendment) Bill: Adelbert Nongrum to MLAs

A Reporter

SHILLONG: KHNAM MLA from North Shillong constituency, Adelbert Nongrum has urged the MLAs from various regional parties in Meghalaya to stand united and oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, is aimed at granting citizenship to people belonging to minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

“All the MLAs belonging to regional parties should be united and oppose this bill because till date the state of Meghalaya does not have any proper mechanism to check influx,” Nongrum told The Sentinel here on Tuesday.

He pointed out that the people belonging to Khasi and Jaintia are indigenous residents of the state and are a minority however if other people from a bigger community come and settle in our state what will happen to the people who are already in a minority.

“As a party we are deeply concern with the intension of the NDA government in Delhi to try and implement the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 and the people of Meghalaya and the entire North East should oppose this bill,” he said.

According to him, if the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is of the opinion that the Bill is needed to be implemented hence he (PM) should first exempt the bill from all the North Eastern states.

When asked, Nongrum said, “The state government should show more interest in this subject matter and take more initiative to make sure that the central government would not move ahead with its intension concerning the bill.”

“The state government should not be content with only passing a resolution at the assembly to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 however the MDA government should also take up other steps to make sure that the centre halts its intension immediately,” he said. “With the AGP in Assam making its position absolute clear against the Bill by withdrawing support to the BJP government, KHNAM requests the NPP to also state clearly without ambiguity if it still supports the BJP in the Centre and the State when the BJP is responsible for such Bills,”THS Bonney general secretary of KHNAM said here on Tuesday.

He said that as KHNAM is a party with clear principles, it also request the other constituents of the MDA –the UDP, HSPDP , PDF etc to clearly state if they still support the BJP.

In this juncture, KHNAM reiterates its position that Adelbert Nongrum will consider support to any government sans BJP if that government do not support Bills like the Citizenship Amendment Bill and also take clear steps to solve the Assam Meghalaya Boundary issue once and for all.

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