Citizenship (Amendment) Bill passed in Lok Sabha with 311 votes as against 80 votes

December 9: At the stroke of the midnight hour, amidst great uproar both inside and outside the Parliament and after six-hour long heated debate on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, it was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday with 311 votes in its favour as against 80 votes out of 391 members who were present and voting. The Bill will now be moved in the Rajya Sabha very soon.

Expressing his views, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Delighted that the Lok Sabha has passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 after a rich and extensive debate. I thank the various MPs and parties that supported the Bill. This Bill is in line with India’s centuries old ethos of assimilation and belief in humanitarian values.”

Delighted that the Lok Sabha has passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 after a rich and extensive debate. I thank the various MPs and parties that supported the Bill. This Bill is in line with India’s centuries old ethos of assimilation and belief in humanitarian values.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 9, 2019

The Prime Minister in a second tweet wrote, “I would like to specially applaud Home Minister @AmitShah Ji for lucidly explaining all aspects of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019. He also gave elaborate answers to the various points raised by respective MPs during the discussion in the Lok Sabha.”

The debate on Monday saw 48 speakers in total cutting across party lines. Earlier in the day, the discussion over the Bill led to a tussle between the BJP and opposition parties and led by Congress, who alleged that the Bill was against Muslims in India. Tearing apart the opposition, Home Minister Amit Shah said, “NDA brought CAB to fix historic wrongs. There is indeed difference between refugees and infiltrators. The CAB is for the religious persecuted refugees and not for infiltrators.” Amit Shah also categorically stated that the nationwide NRC will also be tabled and pass in the parliament.

The next test of the bill will be in Rajya Sabha where the NDA will require the support of at least 123 MPs in the 245-member house. So far, it has the support of 105 MPs. BJP is keen to pass the bill, but it has to reach out to its allies and like-minded parties to have a smooth passage in the Rajya Sabha, where the NDA is in a minority.Senior ministers, however, claim that at least 122 MPs in the Upper House support the bill. Thus, both BJP and Congress along with other political parties are busy getting their arithmetic correct before the bill goes to Rajya Sabha.

The citizenship amendment bill aims to provide citizenship to those who were forced to seek shelter in India without valid travel documents because of religious persecution or fear of persecution in their home countries—primarily Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The bill thus amends the 1955 Act to grant exemptions to illegal migrants from these communities, who reached India on or before December 2014.