In an amusing turn of events, newly minted Congress ally Shiv Sena has voted for the passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in the Lok Sabha late last night. Following a day-long debate, the Bill was passed on the intervening night between 9th and 10th December 2019. The debate on the bill went on for the whole day, and the voting took place after midnight, as the Lok Sabha session continued after 12 AM to the next day. 311 MPs of Lok Sabha voted for it, while 80 voted against it in the division of votes that took place just after midnight.
All 18 Shiv Sena MPs in the Lok Sabha voted for the Bill. This support to BJP comes days after the party broke its alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra to form government with Nationalist Congress Party and Indian National Congress in the state. Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut said that while the party supports the bill, the ‘burden of accepting refugees’ will have to be calculated. He even invoked Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray and said that he always advocated expulsion of illegal immigrants and giving preference to the sons-of-the-soil.
Shiv Sena also said that they supported the CAB in ‘interest of the nation’.
Watch | “In interest of nation”: Shiv Sena on #CitizenshipAmendmentBill flip-flop https://t.co/qMb1Km6i2Z pic.twitter.com/5pzhXg8SqZ
— NDTV (@ndtv) December 10, 2019
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant while speaking to NDTV said that the party has supported the CAB in interest of the nation. He further added that the common minimum programme is valid for Maharashtra.
The Congress voted against the passage of Bill in Lok Sabha last night.
