Will resign if anyone who has not applied for NRC gets citizenship: Himanta

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that he will be the first to resign if one person, who has not applied for National Register of Citizens (NRC), gets citizenship.

His comment comes after protests erupted across Assam with opposition parties flaying the BJP government at the Centre for implementing the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) on Monday, paving the way for granting citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

'I am a son of Assam and if a single person who has not applied for NRC gets citizenship, I will be the first to resign', the chief minister said on the sidelines of a programme at Sivasagar.

The protesters are claiming that lakhs of people will enter the state after the implementation of the CAA.

'If this happens, I will be the first to protest," he said.

There is nothing new about the CAA as it was enacted earlier, the chief minister said, adding that 'now the time has come for application on the portal'.

'The data on the portal will speak now, and it will become clear whether the claims of those opposing the Act stand factually correct or not," Sarma said.

With the CAA rules being issued, the central government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who came to India till December 31, 2014. These include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians. The law could not come into effect as rules had not been notified till now.