Meghalaya Congress women workers demand scrapping of Citizenship Bill

Shillong, Jan 16 (IANS) Congress women workers in Meghalaya on Wednesday took out a protest march demanding the scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 that was passed in the Lok Sabha.

Initially, the Congress workers were planning to stage a protest in-front of the state's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters but the district administration has clamped Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which prevents the assembly of more than five people.

The women's wing of the state Congress shouted slogans and displayed placards, slamming the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and demanding that the Bill should be scrapped immediately, saying that it will have an adverse impact on the future generation of the ethnic communities in the region.

"The Bill passed by the BJP government is to take away the rights of the indigenous people of Meghalaya and to crush and wipe them out," state's Congress women's chief Joplin Scott Shylla said.

Shylla also demanded that the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government headed by Conrad Sangma cut-off ties with the BJP over the Bill that aims to remove hurdles for eligible migrants of six minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan from getting Indian citizenship.

The Bill is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha during Parliament's upcoming Budget Session; however, members of the opposition have strongly opposed it.

The six-party MDA coalition constitutes 20 members from the National People's Party, seven from the United Democratic Party, four from the People's Democratic Front, two each from the HSPDP and the BJP, one from the Nationalist Congress Party besides three Independent members.

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