Naveen Patnaik has, unwittingly or otherwise, made confusion worse confounded in Odisha, while emitting a rather conflicting signal on the citizenship issue. He has drawn a fine distinction between the National Register of Citizens (NRC), that his state will oppose, and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), that it will not as it relates to those whom he calls “foreigners”. He has spelt out the distinction too in terms of the scope of the two citizenship initiatives.
While the NRC has placed Assam on the boil reminiscent of the early 1980s, the CAA is intended to rehabilitate the “persecuted minorities” in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Altogether, the Biju Janata Dal’s chief minister has supported the BJP on CAA. It needs to be underlined that a section of the BJP in Assam has opposed the NRC, crucially because it excludes Hindus from Bangladesh as well. In due course of time, this could upset the party’s electoral applecart.
In the event, Odisha has now joined the league of states and Chief Ministers (seven as of now) who will not implement NRC, not least because of the predicament of Assam, now a BJP state that has been burning for a while. The Opposition-ruled states are West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee), Bihar (Nitish Kumar) Punjab (Amarinder Singh), Rajasthan (Ashok Gehlot), Chhattisgarh (Bhupesh Baghel), and Kerala (Pinarayi Vijayan). Besides, the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi have opposed the NRC and CAA in Parliament.
The Congress and NCP, both of which have opposed the NRC, are part of the coalition in Maharashtra. If Maharashtra is added to the list of states, the states in question will represent 52.08 per cent of the country’s populace. With the BJD and Janata Dal (U) joining the Opposition ranks in countering the NRC, it is possible that the numbers game in Parliament could change. Mr Patnaik is reported to have declined to respond to questions during Wednesday’s interaction with the media, which was confined entirely to his presentation.
Which is a pity as he was expected to be rather more explicit on Odisha’s stand on the twin issues of nationwide contestation. Few Chief Ministers have been as forthright as Mr Patnaik on the implications of CAA ~ “The Citizenship Amendment Act has nothing to do with Indian citizens. It only deals wth foreigners”. His appeal for peace is almost an echo of the West Bengal Chief Minister’s stern warning to perpetrators of arson and violence in different parts of the state last weekend.
Many if not most of those who participated in the showboating in Kolkata over the past three days, are delightfully ignorant of what the NRC and CAA entail. It is imperative for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to be rather more explicit. Sartorial preference is not the core issue.