India’s Rajya Sabha passes LBA bill

India's Rajya Sabha (upper house) passed Wednesday the bill to operationalise the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh and the entailing exchange of enclaves between the two countries, report agencies.
The Constitution (One Hundred and Nineteenth Amendment) Bill, 2013 was unanimously passed by the upper house of the Indian parliament.
 Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj placed the bill aimed at ratifying the LBA between India and Bangladesh under the Indira-Mujib pact of 1974 to exchange areas and people on either side of the border.
A discussion was held after placing of the bill. As many as 181 members of Rajya Sabha gave votes in favour of the bill, but no vote was given against it.
The bill will be moved to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament, today (Thursday) to facilitate exchange of enclaves, transfer of adversely possessed areas and demarcation of undemarcated border.
Moving the bill for passage, Sushma Swaraj clarified that no movement of population was necessitated by the exchange of enclaves.
"If Indians in Bangladeshi enclaves want to stay there, they will be given Bangladeshi citizenship and if Bangladeshis living in Indian enclaves want to stay, they will be given Indian citizenship," she said.
The bill, which the Bharatiya Janata Party, Asom Gana Parishad and Trinamool Congress had opposed when it was brought by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2013, amends the First Schedule of the Constitution to give effect to an agreement entered into by India and Bangladesh on the acquiring and transfer of territories between the two countries on May 16, 1974.
In 2011, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had signed the land swap deal known as the LBA.
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 to power, the bill was again sent to the standing committee on the external affairs ministry, and a report was presented in December 2014.
The First Schedule defines the area of each state and union territory which together constitute India.
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 Tuesday.