Refreshing tactics from BJP : Fresh twist to Citizenship Bill
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 16 2019 -

Right wing, left wing, centrist, whatever it is, but it stands that the BJP has mastered the art of viewing everything as something potential to help its cause.

This is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that party president Amit Shah is looking for ways to build the coming Lok Sabha election campaign around the Citizenship Bill.

Top this up with the fact that Amit Shah has invited BJP Chief Ministers from the North East States and office bearers for a meeting on February 17 and one can sense the party’s think tank working overtime to turn an issue which generated intense public agitation to an advantage.

This speaks something eloquent about the party and there is something to be learnt from here.

Maybe the BJP think tank is working over time to turn the CAB into a googly to be bowled to the Congress and catch them on the wrong foot.

Perhaps the precursor of things to come may be seen from the immediate response of Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma when he quipped that the failure to get the CAB passed in the Rajya Sabha is akin to giving the license to Bangladeshi Muslims to get elected in 17 Assembly Constituencies in Assam.

This is a googly, a googly which has in a way put the onus on the Congress for the large scale illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh who have made Assam their home.

Perfectly complementing the observation of Himanta Biswa Sarma was Kiren Rijiju who came out with the accusation that it was the Congress which ‘settled’ infiltrators on protected land in the North East.

Two stones hurled at the same target and it will be interesting how the Congress respond in the coming days.

As noted earlier in this column, this is where all need to look beyond CAB and see what steps can be taken up to check the inflow of illegal migrants.

The development is interesting.

After the CAB did not make it to the Rajya Sabha in the face of the intense protest in the North East, the BJP today is seen to be employing means to make capital out of a failed endeavour and the result will perhaps be known after the Lok Sabha elections, scheduled soon.

This is what is refreshing about the Saffron party.

If an endeavour has failed to pass through Parliament, then the best course of action is to let the people speak through their franchise rights, is the line the BJP seems to be adopting.

This is the tactic that one can see in the reported agenda of Amit Shah to build the Lok Sabha campaign around the Citizenship Bill.

Remains to be seen what strategies will be employed to take the fight to the Congress, which spoke out strongly against the CAB in its endeavour to send out the message that the oldest political party in the country stands with the indigenous people of the North East region irrespective of religion.

The very game plan of Amit Shah itself suggests that the CAB is far from dead and the BJP is ready to make political capital out of it, irrespective of the fact that it could not be enacted.

The Lok Sabha where the BJP enjoys a massive majority has already spoken where it stands on the CAB and the BJP intending to use this in the Lok Sabha campaign should say something very meaningful.