Hardly a month is left for New Dehli and Dhaka to implement the land swap deal.
If an Indian in Bangladeshi enclaves want to stay there, he or she will get Bangladeshi citizenship. If a Bangladeshi national living in Indian enclaves want to stay, they are free to get Indian citizenship.
This was more or less of what Sushma Swaraj told in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
Moving the Constitution (One Hundred and Nineteenth Amendment) Bill, 2013 in the upper House on Wednesday morning, the external affairs minister made it plain and simple that no movement of population was necessitated by the exchange of enclaves.
The constitutional amendment bill to operationalise the agreement was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2013 but could not be passed due to stiff opposition.
When the Narendra Modi government came in power, the bill was again sent to the standing committee on the external affairs ministry, and a report was presented in December 2014.
The bill to operationalise the agreement with Bangladesh includes exchange of territories in Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya, and was cleared by the union cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday.
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