The Congress would be banking on the sentiment against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 to stop the BJP from winning the 25 Lok Sabha seats across the eight States in the Northeast.
On February 17, less than a week after the Congress claimed to have stalled the Bill from being tabled in the Rajya Sabha, BJP president Amit Shah said that his party would bring it again if voted to power in the upcoming parliamentary polls.
“Only through manipulation can the BJP hope to win 21 out of 25 seats in the region. The Congress is the only hope for the people of the Northeast against the BJP’s plan that will be disastrous for their culture, identity and tradition,” Luizinho Faleiro, Congress general secretary in-charge of Meghalaya, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, told media persons on Wednesday.
Unemployment crisis
Apart from the Bill, the Congress would also focus on the unemployment crisis in the region as well as the rest of the country.
Mr. Faleiro ribbed the regional parties that are partners of BJP in the North East Democratic Platform, an anti-Congress forum otherwise labelled as a platform for developmental issues.
“The NEDA members cannot fool the people of the Northeast with their opportunist politics. If they had any values left and if they were truly concerned about the cause of the people of the region, they would have resigned the very day Amit Shah announced that the BJP would bring back the Citizenship Bill if voted to power,” Mr. Faleiro said.
NEDA members such as National People’s Party had threatened to pull out of the forum as well as sever political ties with the BJP if it went ahead with the citizenship Bill. The Congress has eight Lok Sabha members form the Northeast, three from Assam which has a total 14 constituencies. The BJP too has eight seats while its NEDA partners have three. The other seats are held by All India United Democratic Front, the CPI(M) and an Independent.
