Right to Information (RTI) activist Okram Prasanta Singha on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal of “lying” while assuring constitutional safety of the indigenous people of the state under Clause 6 of the Assam Accord in return for implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Singha said the “biological” effect of CAA cannot be solved by cultural rights under Clause 6 of the Accord.

Singha told reporters here, “It is a lie when both the PM and the CM try to appease the people of Assam by promising implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord to defend the amended citizenship act. While the CAA is related to living human beings (biological), Clause 6 is related to providing constitutional safeguards to Assamese people for protection of their political rights, language, culture and land rights. These two are completely different and cannot be compared and equalled.”

Singha said there was a major procedural lapse while bringing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019. The usual procedures needed to bring a bill were not followed by the Centre, he added.

“The Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha were not followed in bringing the bill. Though the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) had promised to revisit Assam to get ground reports and commoner’s perspectives, it did not. Therefore, the entire process remained incomplete which is a major lapse,” Sigha said.

Last year, a 16-member JPC team, headed by BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal, visited Assam from May 7 to May 9 to get views of stakeholders on CAB 2016, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha. Though CAB 2016 virtually died after the end of the NDA’s first term, the JPC allegedly did not visit Assam to get the views on CAB 2019 before enacting it during the second term of the Modi government.

“The high power committee on Assam Accord is only concentrating on protecting the political and cultural identities of the people of Assam under Clause 6 and excludes the most vital biological process under Clause 5.8 of the Accord which focuses on deportation of illegal foreigners from Assam who came after March 24, 1971.”

While the Accord identifies anyone who entered Assam before March 25, 1971 as an Indian citizen, CAA seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India till December 31, 2014.