Sena keeps everyone guessing in Delhi on its stand on Citizenship Amendment Bill

Mumbai: After having walked out of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and having formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra, with the help of Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Shiv Sena on Monday kept everybody guessing on its stand over the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in the Lok Sabha.

On one hand Sena welcomed the need to evict infiltrators, it did not object to giving them citizenship, but did not want them to be given voting rights and wanted even Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to be included in the provisions of the bill. Political observers in New Delhi are perplexed by the Sena’s ambivalence stand supporting the government on some aspects and opposing on the other aspects of the bill. Political observers opined that given its ambivalent stance the Sena might stage a Walk Out from the Lok Sabha.

It may be recalled that the Sena which had called for a crucial meeting of its Members of Parliament on Sunday was cancelled without any reason. The Sena has 18 Lok Sabha MPs and 3 Rajya Sabha MP’s. It is not clear as to whether the Sena had taken part in the voting earlier in the morning taken for the introduction of the bill in the Lok Sabha, as no division of votes was asked for by anyone.

In the voting that took place in the morning, out of the total 375 Lok Sabha MP’s who were present in the house, 293 MP’s voted in favor and 82 MP’s had voted against it. The bill seeks to grant citizenship rights to persecuted minorities of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Leading the Sena charge in the Lok Sabha, Sena MP from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency, Vinayak Raut remarked “ghuspaithiyon ko bahar nikalna humari zmmedaari hai (it is our responsibility to evict infiltrators). Want to know how many have come from these countries and have sought refuge. The nation is already short of resources. If these people are being given citizenship, that is fine, but don’t give them voting rights for 25 years”.

Wondering why the inclusion of Afghanistan in the bill, the Sena MP added that although the North-East state’s have been excluded from the purview of the bill, people there are still afraid that there land will be taken away. Raut further said “since refugees cannot be resettled in the North-East, where will you resettle? What is the policy for that?”

Commenting upon the abrogation of Article 370 in the last session, Raut said that although the Article 370 has been taken away, Kashmiri Pandits are yet to be resettled in Jammu and Kashmir. Expressing his opposition to the inclusion of Afghanistan in the purview of the bill, he further demanded that either the government delete the reference to Afghanistan or else include Sri Lanka also”.

In a tweet directed at Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Raut remarked “illegal intruders should be thrown out. Immigrant Hindus must be given citizenship, but @AmitShah lets give rest to allegations of creating vote bank and not give them voting rights, what say? And yes what about Pandits?, have they gone back to Kashmir after article 370 was removed?”