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NEW DELHI: The promise to roll out National Register of Citizens (NRC) is missing from BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra‘ released on Sunday, even as the promise to cut the geographical area under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in north-eastern states has made an entry.
BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ for 2019 had promised to expeditiously complete the NRC process in Assam – then under way under scrutiny of the Supreme Court – and “actively consider its extension to other states”.It attributed the intent to implement NRC in a phased manner in parts of the country to illegal immigration, talking of the huge change it had made on the cultural and linguistic identity of these areas and its adverse impact on local people’s livelihood.
The party’s manifesto for 2024 cited the zero terror attacks in any city since 2014, a significant decline in violence in J&K post nullification of Article 370 and the 52% dip in Left-wing extremist violence.
Though there is no reference to NRC this time, the manifesto reiterates the promise to confer citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on citizens of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from six minority faiths who had migrated to India before Dec 2014.
When CAA was passed, its opponents had tried to link it to NRC, claiming that CAA was the stepping stone to the creation of NRC and declaring Indian Muslims lacking any proof of citizenship as non-citizens. However, the govt has repeatedly clarified that there is no link between CAA and NRC. It maintains that CAA has no provision to take away citizenship of anyone, Muslim or otherwise, and that as far as NRC is concerned, the govt has not declared any intent to prepare it.
CAA was implemented last month, more than four years after it was enacted.
Though no promise of phased rollback of AFSPA from the north-east was made in BJP’s 2019 manifesto, the last five years have seen a significant reduction in areas declared as “disturbed” under the Act, thanks to the 71% decline in insurgency incidents in the region.
As of now, AFSPA is restricted to only eight districts of Assam. In Manipur, AFSPA has been removed from 19 police stations in seven districts; and in Nagaland, 18 police stations across eight districts are out of its purview. AFSPA was totally withdrawn from Tripura in May 2015 and from Meghalaya in March 2018.
BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ for 2019 had promised to expeditiously complete the NRC process in Assam – then under way under scrutiny of the Supreme Court – and “actively consider its extension to other states”.It attributed the intent to implement NRC in a phased manner in parts of the country to illegal immigration, talking of the huge change it had made on the cultural and linguistic identity of these areas and its adverse impact on local people’s livelihood.
The party’s manifesto for 2024 cited the zero terror attacks in any city since 2014, a significant decline in violence in J&K post nullification of Article 370 and the 52% dip in Left-wing extremist violence.
Though there is no reference to NRC this time, the manifesto reiterates the promise to confer citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on citizens of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from six minority faiths who had migrated to India before Dec 2014.
When CAA was passed, its opponents had tried to link it to NRC, claiming that CAA was the stepping stone to the creation of NRC and declaring Indian Muslims lacking any proof of citizenship as non-citizens. However, the govt has repeatedly clarified that there is no link between CAA and NRC. It maintains that CAA has no provision to take away citizenship of anyone, Muslim or otherwise, and that as far as NRC is concerned, the govt has not declared any intent to prepare it.
CAA was implemented last month, more than four years after it was enacted.
Though no promise of phased rollback of AFSPA from the north-east was made in BJP’s 2019 manifesto, the last five years have seen a significant reduction in areas declared as “disturbed” under the Act, thanks to the 71% decline in insurgency incidents in the region.
As of now, AFSPA is restricted to only eight districts of Assam. In Manipur, AFSPA has been removed from 19 police stations in seven districts; and in Nagaland, 18 police stations across eight districts are out of its purview. AFSPA was totally withdrawn from Tripura in May 2015 and from Meghalaya in March 2018.
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