The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Selu Municipal Council in Parbhani district of Maharashtra has unanimously passed a resolution against the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens, PTI reported on Monday.
“The resolution was passed by majority without any opposition on February 28,” Chairperson Vinod Borade said. He added that there were 27 councillors and three co-opted members in the council.
Borade said that the local public representatives also supported the decision. The chairperson summoned a meeting two days before the resolution was passed, as demanded by the members of the Nationalist Congress Party, Congress and seven councillors from the Muslim community.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had last month said that National Register of Citizens would not be implemented in the state. However, he added that nobody needed to be afraid of the citizenship law.
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act are continuing across the country, more than a month after it was passed in Parliament. The amendments, notified on January 10, provide citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, provided they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014. The National Register of Citizens intends to identify undocumented immigrants across India. As critics have noted, the NRC, in tandem with the Citizenship Amendment Act, could be used to render many Indian Muslims stateless since the citizenship law excludes Muslims.
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