CAA will affect state’s demography: Congress to Tripura govt

AGARTALA — Five days after Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha announced that the state government would implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the opposition Congress urged the BJP government not to implement the new law as it would change the demography of the state.

A delegation of the Congress tribal wing Tripura Pradesh Congress Adivasi Committee (TPCAC) on Tuesday met Tripura Chief Secretary J. K. Sinha and urged him not to implement the CAA.

The TPCAC Chairman Sabda Kumar Jamatia, who led the five-member delegation, told the Chief Secretary that if more foreigners take shelter in Tripura, it would add additional hardship to the people of the bordering state in terms of economy and other issues.

The TPCAC urged the state government not to implement the CAA in Tripura as it would jeopardise the interest of the indigenous people.

The Congress’ tribal wing said that before passing the CAA in 2019 in the parliament, 1971 was the cut-off year of residence in India for obtaining Indian citizenship by any foreigner through an accepted procedure and for that, any foreigner entering Tripura from Bangladesh after 1971 cannot be provided Indian Citizenship.

Meanwhile, Congress working committee member Sudip Roy Barman criticised Tipra Motha Party (TMP) supremo Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma and alleged that he cheated the tribals by raising many demands and now backtracked from his earlier stand.

“Earlier Debbarma strongly opposed the CAA and now after becoming an ally of the BJP since March, changed his position on the issue. TMP Chief was talking against the BJP before March, but now he has changed colours and joined the BJP to serve his personal interest,” said Roy Barman, also a Congress MLA.

The former minister urged the people especially the tribals not to trust Debbarma anymore and to teach him a lesson befittingly in future elections.

Reacting to the criticism of Roy Barman, the TMP head said that he was always with the tribals and that in future he would fight for the cause of the tribals, who according to him were majority in Tripura and now become minority.

Debbarma said that Roy Barman has no integrity for the people of Tripura and joined Trinamool Congress and BJP to gain personal interest but later quit both parties and again returned to Congress.

Tripura Chief Minister last week said that after directions from the Centre, the state government is preparing to implement CAA in the state.

Following the advice of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a six-member state-level empowered committee with the Director of Census Operations as its chairman was formed in Tripura recently to grant citizenship under the CAA.

Rabindra Reang, Director of Census Operations, Tripura, said that after the advice of the MHA, like other states and Union Territories in the country, a state-level empowered committee was constituted in Tripura for granting Indian citizenship under the CAA.

District-level committees headed by the District Magistrates of all the eight districts were also formed accordingly, Reang told IANS.

Meanwhile, on March 11, the Centre notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024, thus paving the way for enforcing the CAA, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians who came to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014.