The royal scion of Tripura and former Congress state unit chief Kirit Pradyot Manikya Deb Burman has urged all residents of the state to unite against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Hindustan Times reported on Sunday. In a protest on Saturday, he claimed that the undocumented migrants who will get citizenship through the amended law will not be allowed to settle down in the state.
“Our state has accommodated a large number of migrants from the then East Pakistan after the partition of the country and has no space to accommodate anymore,” he said, according to PTI. “After implementation of CAA, a sizeable number of people coming from foreign countries would get citizenship, but none of them could be resettled in our state.”
Deb Burman made the remarks at a protest rally in Khumulwung, the headquarters of Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, organised by his apolitical organisation Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance. The former Congress leader said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should settle all those who will get citizenship through CAA in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, or any other state except the North East region.
Deb Burman is the successor of the Manikya kingdom that ruled over the state till its merger with the Indian Union in 1949. “Since national media will not report this anti-CAA rally which we held today to the rest of India I am posting these picture[s] for those who don’t know what is happening in Tripura,” the royal scion tweeted on Sunday. “Share these pictures and let our friends in Northeast and rest of the country know.”
“We are proud Indians and we oppose this bill because it would harm the prospect the indigenous people of the state and the existence of our community would be at stake,” he said. He also urged the public to reject all political parties and politicians as they divided people for their party’s interests and to appease their vote banks, adding that some tried to provoke a communal conflict between the indigenous communities and the Bengalis living in Tripura.
“I appeal to all people to continue the struggle peacefully and don’t treat the non-indigenous as enemies. The non-indigenous didn’t pass the CAA,” he said. “Your enemies are people who got elected with your vote, went to Delhi and sold themselves.” He said that the tribal and non-tribal community had come together and build a unified struggle against the amended citizenship law.
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