Assam BJP spokesperson Rajdeep Roy said on Monday that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, would be placed and passed in the winter session of Parliament and the AGP, a coalition partner of the ruling BJP and opposed to the bill, would be free to pull out of the alliance.

The bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in July 2016, aims to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014.

Roy told reporters at a news conference here on Monday that a high-level state BJP team, including chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, among others, had recently met central BJP leaders, including BJP national president Amit Shah and BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, and spoke about issues related to the bill.

The state BJP leaders had received a positive response from the central leadership in this regard, Roy said.

He iterated that the BJP is committed to provide security and shelter to the persecuted migrants and claimed that the bill, which is being reviewed by a joint parliamentary committee, will be implemented in the upcoming winter session of Parliament.

He slammed the AGP for opposing the bill and seeking support from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar against the bill.

An eight-member delegation of the AGP had recently met Nitish and sought the JDU’s support against passage of the bill in Parliament.

Roy said the BJP’s stand on the bill is firm/unchangeable. “If they (AGP) want to break the alliance, they are most welcome,” he said. He added there had been immense growth in population of a minority community in the state over the years and speculated that Assam would be a Muslim-dominated state in the next two decades.

AGP spokesperson Tularam Gogoi told The Telegraph that his party’s stand was clear and if the BJP has any problem, it should discuss it with the central leadership. “It (Roy’s comment) is nothing but BJP’s arrogance which will bring about its downfall. We have made our stand clear to the BJP leadership on the bill issue. If they pass the bill we will snap our ties with the BJP. If state leaders have any problem, they should talk to their central leadership.”

Commenting on Roy’s statement that the bill would be passed in the winter session of Parliament, Congress MLA from Karimganj Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha said it was nothing but “a strategic move to gain political mileage” before the 2019 elections.

He said the BJP leaders of Barak Valley were “good for nothing” and considered unimportant by the BJP. “The Barak BJP is totally useless and has no say,” he said.

The general secretary of the Citizens’ Rights Protection Coordination Committee (CRPCC), a conglomerate of different organisations in Barak Valley, Sadhan Purkayastha, echoed the MLA and said the Roy’s statement was part of a plan to woo voters before 2019 elections.

“If the BJP really cared for the persecuted migrants, it would have expedited the process and taken necessary steps to implement the bill long back. This is nothing but a fake promise and a drama,” he said.