Why BJP is silent on CAA, NRC ahead of Assam polls

The promise to detect foreigners through the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and to grant citizenship, particularly to ‘harassed’ Hindu migrants, through the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, was the crux of the BJP’s campaign in Assam during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and Assembly elections in 2016. It helped BJP and its allies win seven out of 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. The success prompted BJP to harp on it even more strongly ahead of the 2016 polls. This, according to political observers, helped BJP and its allies wrest power from the 15-year-old Congress government led by Tarun Gogoi and form its first government in the state, considered a Congress bastion till then.

If the poll pundits are to be believed, people of the ethnic communities voted for BJP hoping that the party would detect and deport “illegal migrants” from Bangladesh if it came to power. The CAA also pulled the votes of the large Bengali Hindu community -- nearly 25% of Assam’s population – to the BJP as it promised citizenship to all non-Muslim migrants who had come into Assam till 2014 and to those of them whose names were not on the NRC list.

Ahead of the Assembly elections slated for April though, the BJP has gone surprisingly silent on both CAA and NRC. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda, all have remained silent on the issue during the four mass functions they have addressed so far in the past few weeks. So is Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, one of the BJP’s poll strategists in the northeast. Sarma used to talk about CAA/NRC almost on a daily basis even during the coronavirus pandemic.

Why has BJP gone silent on CAA, NRC? “They are scared of the fallout,” Congress spokesperson in Assam Rituparna Konwar told DH in January when Nadda sounded the BJP’s poll bugle at Silchar, the Bengali heartland in southern Assam. “If they talk about the CAA, the indigenous people will vote against them. They had promised to drive out foreigners, but they did the opposite by bringing in the CAA,” Konwar said.

Most indigenous people, particularly those in the Brahmaputra Valley, roared in protest in December 2019 when the CAA was passed by Parliament. The protest turned violent in Guwahati and other parts, and five protesters died in police firing. Life came to a complete halt as Assam burned and many BJP leaders faced the agitators’ anger.

Those protesting against the CAA fear that it would reduce the ethnic communities of Assam to minorities by giving citizenship to large number of post-1971 Hindu Bengali migrants. This, according to them, would destroy their identity, culture and language. They want all foreigners to be detected as per the Assam Accord of 1985, irrespective of religion, and deported. The accord had promised to detect and deport all foreigners who had come in after March 24, 1971.

Congress leaders claim that Hindu Bengalis would also vote against BJP as it had failed to implement the CAA. BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami said recently, however, that the party’s victory in 50% of the panchayat seats in December 2018 and in the Bodoland Territorial Council polls in December 2020 proved that the CAA would make no difference to its prospect in the Assembly elections. “In fact, we (BJP and allies) will win more seats this time. Our target is to win more than 100 seats,” Goswami said. Assam has 126 Assembly seats.

NRC flip-flop

The BJP had gone to town when over 40 lakh people were dropped from the first draft of the NRC in 2018. “Hum mein himmat tha...humne kar ke dikhaya,” (we had the guts, we did it), Amit Shah had said as he and other BJP leaders tried to take credit for the NRC exercise although it was being done as per the Supreme Court’s orders and as a result of the Assam Accord.

The ruling party took a U-turn, however, when the final list of the NRC was published in which only 19.06 lakh people had failed to make it. Sarma publicly refused to accept the final NRC list saying that many ineligible persons were included and many genuine citizens had been left out. The BJP now wants a “sample reverification” or another NRC exercise, if the Supreme Court permits. Observers say the party is not talking about NRC ahead of elections fearing the anger of both indigenous people and those left out of the final list.

Poll strategy

Many in Assam believe that the BJP is trying to downplay CAA and NRC in order to give an impression that the two were not factors in this election. This, according to them, could be due to the fact that the CAA brought Congress and the Badruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF together. They have stitched a “grand alliance” of six parties to contest the Assembly polls against the BJP. The “grand alliance” is eyeing the “united” Muslim vote (over 30%) and those strongly opposed to CAA and NRC. Congress leaders claimed the “grand alliance” will take away at least 25 more seats where BJP candidates had won in 2016 mainly due to the division of Muslim votes between Congress and AIUDF.

The anti-CAA agitation has also led to the birth of two regional parties: Assam Jatiya Parishad, led by All Assam Students’ Union leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi, and Raijor Dal, led by Akhil Gogoi, who is in jail since the agitation in December 2019. Akhil Gogoi has been booked under sedition charge. The two parties have also decided to contest the elections together.

Sensing an opportunity, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tried to win back the confidence of the indigenous communities in his party last week by promising that Congress would not allow implementation of CAA if it came to power in the state. He also promised that Congress would protect the Assam Accord, which was signed during his father Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure in 1985 following the six-year-long anti-foreigners movement.