Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma Tuesday said he will discuss the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha with leaders of his National Peoples Party (NPP) in all the northeastern states to decide the future course of action.
The NPP heads the government in Meghalaya and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is its alliance partner. Both the parties are also part of the ruling governments in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and in Manipur.
I will call the party leaders from all states and decide on the next step, Conrad, who is also NPP president, told mediapersons here, minutes after the bill was passed in the lower house of Parliament.
As you know the NPP is present in 5 states in the northeast. I need to call the party leaders and together we will decide the future course of action, he said.
He further said that the Meghalaya cabinet had passed an official resolution to oppose any attempt to amend the Citizenship Bill.
We were the first government to come out with an official resolution within the Cabinet to oppose the propose Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, he said, adding that the NPP's stand on the matter was aggressive and clear.
The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to the the Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 years currently even if they do not possess any document.