Rajnath Singh to table CAB on 13 Feb in Rajya Sabha as per revised list of business

February 13: The controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, which seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, was supposed to be tabled in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. However, the House was adjourned on 12 February following an uproar by Samajwadi Party members after party chief Akhilesh Yadav was allegedly stopped at Lucknow airport while on his way to Allahabad.

As per the Revised List of Business of Rajya Sabha for Wednesday, February 13, 2019, it was stated that, “Shri Rajnath Singh to move that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 further to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, as passed by Lok Sabha, be taken into consideration.”

Also Read: Rajya Sabha adjourned for the day, fate of CAB uncertain

The states in the northeast including Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram and Manipur, have been seeing wide scale protests ever since the controversial Bill was introduced and passed in Lok Sabha in January.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will amend the laws governing citizenship, formed in 1955, to grant Indian nationality to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who fled religious persecution from the three neighbouring countries and entered India before December 31, 2014.

This has led to widespread protests in Assam and the other northeastern states who have raised strong objections about discriminating against immigrants and said that no infiltrator, irrespective of their religion, should be given citizenship rights. The protesters say the bill, which seeks to allow citizenship to illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh who came to the state after March 1971, is a violation of the Assam Accord, 1985.