Will Jharkhand Join Fight Against CAA+NRC? Here's What Probable CM Hemant Soren Said Ahead of Assembly Elections Results
If the final results go with the trends, Jharkhand is expected to join states where the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) won't be implemented.
Ranchi, December 23: The Opposition alliance comprising the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is set to give a jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Jharkhand assembly elections. Going by the current trends, the Hemant Soren led JMM-Congress-RJD combine was leading on 42 out of 81 assembly seats in Jharkhand. If the final results go with the trends, Jharkhand is expected to join states where the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) won't be implemented.
Ahead of the Jharkhand assembly elections results, Hemant Soren made it clear that if the tri-party alliance is voted to power, the CAA and NRC won't be implemented in the state. "Both the CAA and NRC sound similar. They will be evaluated afresh. If we feel Jharkhand could plunge into violence, both CAA and NRC will not be put into practice," Hemant was quoted by The Hindu as saying. So far, as many as ten chief ministers have stated that they would not allow the implementation of the CAA or NRC in their states. Hemant Soren to be Jharkhand Chief Minister? Know All About JMM Chief Who is Likely to Take Reins of Tribal State For Second Time.
Four Congress Chief Ministers - Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh, Bhupesh Baghel in Chhattisgarh, Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan and V Narayanasamy in Puducherry - along with their West Bengal and Kerala counterparts Mamata Banerjee and Pinarayi Vijayan have rejected the CAA-NRC combine. The Shiv Sena, an ally of the Congress and NCP in Maharashtra government, said that they would wait for the Supreme Court's ruling on petitions against the amended Act before deciding on the implementation in the state.
Notably, the Shiv Sena voted for the CAA in Lok Sabha, but walked out during the voting in Rajya Sabha. Similarly, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his Odisha and Andhra Pradesh counterparts Naveen Patnaik and YS Jaganmohan Reddy have ruled out conducting the NRC in their respective states. Kumar's Janata Dal (United), Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal and Reddy's YSR Congress voted in favour of the CAA in Parliament.
Moreover, the Rajasthan, Kerala and West Bengal governments have also stopped updation of the National Population Register (NPR). As mandated by the central government, under the NPR, a census will be conducted from house to house across the country from April 1, 2020, to September 30, 2020. The motive behind the NPR is to create a database of the comprehensive identity of common residents of the country. Apparently, the NPR is linked with the NRC.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 23, 2019 01:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).