Kiren Rijiju, Himanta Biswa Sarma

The BJP on Saturday appointed Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju as election observer for Nagaland and Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma for Tripura.

BJP president Amit Shah appointed both to the party posts in view of the two assembly elections next year, a party statement said.
Tripura is governed by the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist since 1993, while Nagaland is governed by the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland that includes the BJP. Both the states will go to poll early next year.
Sarma, who started his political career as a Congress leader, switched side ahead of last year’s Assam elections. He is the convener of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), an alliance of regional parties.

Rijiju is a heavyweight from Arunachal Pradesh and the two leaders have been instrumental in the BJP’s rise in the Northeast.

Meanwhile, the Nikhil Bharat Bengali Youth & Students Federation is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over their demand to promulgate Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and granting citizenship status to them.

“We are supporting the Bill but and want that Government should grant citizenship status to the Bengali Hindus coming to India. We don’t support that the people who were victims of religious prosecution in Bangladesh should be given only refugee status,” Nikhil Bharat Bengali Youth & Students Federation president Mahananda Sarkar Dutta told reporters here.

The Federation on Friday submitted a memorandum to the PMO and also registered protests against atrocities meted towards Bengali Hindus in Assam.