Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which was passed by Parliament in December 2019, will be notified and implemented before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The Sunday Guardian was the first to write in its 17 December edition that the rules of the Act would be introduced before the country goes to general election.
While speaking at an event in New Delhi, Shah said that the Act was an enabling Act as it would provide citizenship and not take away the citizenship of any individual.
“CAA is an Act of the country, it will definitely be notified. It will be notified before the polls. CAA will be implemented by the polls, and there should be no confusion around it,” Shah said.
He asserted that the CAA is an act to provide citizenship and not to take away anyone’s citizenship, and that it aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants. It is pertinent to mention that the CAA was passed by Parliament in December 2019 and had led to violent incidents in many parts of the country, coinciding with the visit of then American President Donald Trump to India in early 2020.
Continuing the BJP’s recent series of aggressive attacks on the Congress, inside Parliament and outside, Shah accused the Congress of backtracking on the issue of providing citizenship to refugees. “CAA was a promise of the Congress government. When the country was divided and the minorities were persecuted in those countries, Congress had assured the refugees that they were welcome in India and they would be provided with Indian citizenship. Now they are backtracking,” Shah said.
Shah categorically said that the terms that CAA was brought in to provide citizenship and not to take away anyone’s citizenship.
Samik Bhattacharya, chief spokesperson of the BJP in West Bengal said that the implementation of CAA and then NRC is about the existence of genuine Indian citizens, the internal security of the country and its territorial integrity and sovereignty and hence the party, in any circumstances, will not compromise on this topic. “CAA will be implemented in West Bengal, NRC will be enacted in West Bengal, today or tomorrow, it is a different matter, but it will be implemented. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee resigned from his ministership on this issue, to oppose the Nehru-Liaqat pact. This act is synonymous with the BJP. CAA has to be implemented otherwise there will be ideological dilution of our party. We will not succumb to the jihadi elements and demographic infiltration that is going on in West Bengal—people who are opposing the CAA and NRC,” Bhattacharya said while issuing a warning, “jo virodh karega, usko tod diya jayega (Those who will oppose the implementation of the law will be broken)”.
Among the political bloc that is going to be positively impacted by the implementation of this law is the Matua population of about 3 crore in West Bengal, out of which more than 1.5 crore are listed as voters. They have decisively voted for the BJP in the last two elections. According to the number two most powerful individuals in the government, minorities in India, and especially those who follow Islam, were being provoked by vested interests by creating fear in their minds. “CAA cannot snatch away anyone’s citizenship, because there is no provision in the Act. CAA is an act to provide citizenship to refugees who were persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan”. Under the CAA, Indian nationality will be granted to persecuted non-Muslim migrants—Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians—from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who had come to India till 31 December 2014.
The move is likely to make a substantial impact on the demography and politics in many parts of the country, especially the Northeast and East, including the politically important West Bengal where a large number of illegal migrants will be impacted once the CAA comes into effect.