Setting his sights on 2021 Assembly elections, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said citizenship law implementation will get priority ahead of the polls, as both his party and the Centre were keen on ending woes of the state's refugee population. Asserting that free and fair polls were not possible without the imposition of President's Rule in the state, Vijayvargiya, who is the BJP's Bengal minder, stated that the party, however, is unlikely to raise the matter during Union Home Minister Amit Shah's two-day visit from November 5.
The state unit, nevertheless, would convey its grievances over the recent "political killings" in Bengal and the "politicisation and criminalisation" of some police officers, Vijayvargiya maintained. Noting that "the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise was not up for discussion" as of now, he said the BJP, at the moment, is looking forward to granting citizenship to the persecuted refugees from neighbouring countries.
"Our (central) government has passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) with an honest intention to grant citizenship to the persecuted refugees who have come to our country from the neighbouring nations. But there have been few petitions against the CAA in the court. "We are hopeful that as and when the (pandemic) situation normalises, there would be a decision. We would try to prioritise CAA implementation before elections in Bengal," Vijayvargiya told .