The Lok Sabha a little past midnight on Monday passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill after a reply by Home Minister Amit Shah who said that the "historic" legislation will liberate crores of refugees from adversities they have faced for decades.
After the Bill was passed by 311-80 votes in the lower house, Bollywood actress Swara Bhasker, took to Twitter, to express her anguish. She wrote, "I do not want my hard earned money as a taxpayer to be spent in funding this sick bigoted NRC/CAB project! #CAB #CABAgainstConstitution #CABBill #NRCBill #IndiaAgainstCAB"
On a similar note, Swara had earlier batted for JNU students who have been protesting over the fee hike. The actress shared that she doesn’t mind her hard-earned money being spent on subsidised education. "As a taxpayer, I have no problem in my hard-earned money being spent on subsidised education. In a country like India, which is still relatively poor and structurally unequal, public funding in education and higher education enables a very large percentage of the population, especially the lower-income and below poverty line groups, to access the education," reads a report by India Today.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, excluding Muslims, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for Indian citizenship. The Bill relaxes the requirement of residence in India from 11 years to six years for these migrants.
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