Congress, RJD Slam BJD For Supporting Citizenship Amendment Bill

Bhubaneswar: Opposition parties like Congress and RJD have criticised the BJD for supporting the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in the Parliament.

Senior Congress leader B K Hariprasad alleged that BJD is supporting the BJP in all the matters out of fear.

"I don't know what kind of deal has been struck but both BJP and BJD tried to make the dream of Savarkar and Jinnah true and passed the CAB bill in Parliament. Amit Shah must have asked him (Naveen Patnaik) for support with the condition of not launching probe into the chit fund scam," said Hariprasad.

Similarly, RJD MP Manoj Jha alleged, "I feel sad that the party which bears the name of Biju Patnaik is supporting the bill. If Biju babu were alive today; he wouldn't have supported this bill. I don't know under what pressure Naveen ji supported the bill."

Speaking on the alleged BJD-BJP deal, BJP leader and Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari said, "Congress party has lost its mind. The bill would have been passed even without BJD's support, so it is not right to link it with any kind of secret deal."

Responding to the allegations, BJD MLA Sashi Bhusan Behera said, "Taking into consideration interests of the State, BJD takes every decision. It will not compromise anything that is against the State."

The Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 9 and in the Rajya Sabha yesterday. The bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who fled religious persecution from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and entered India before December 31, 2014.