The Centre on Monday applied the Citizenship Modification Act (CAA), 5 years after it was handed in Parliament. The notification comes forward of the announcement of dates for the Lok Sabha elections by the Election Fee of India.
Final month, Union House Minister Amit Shah stated that the CAA will likely be applied earlier than the Lok Sabha elections this 12 months after issuing the principles on this regard.
The CAA, enacted by Parliament on December 11, 2019, has been a topic of intense debate and widespread protests throughout India.
The CAA amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to offer a fast-track pathway to Indian citizenship for migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who belong to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian communities and who entered India on or earlier than December 31, 2014, on account of going through non secular persecution of their dwelling nations.
There have been sit-ins at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh and protest gatherings in Guwahati, Assam. All of the protests fizzled out in the course of the Covid-induced restrictions and lockdowns.
In the meantime, the Congress questioned the timing of the federal government’s notification, saying it had been executed to “polarise the elections”.
“It has taken four years and three months for the Modi Government to notify the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act that was passed by the Parliament in December 2019. The Prime Minister claims that his Government works in a business-like and time-bound manner. The time taken to notify the rules for the CAA is yet another demonstration of the Prime Minister’s blatant lies,” Congress’s Communications In-charge Jairam Ramesh stated in a publish on X.
“After seeking nine extensions for the notification of the rules, the timing right before the elections is evidently designed to polarise the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam. It also appears to be an attempt to manage the headlines after the Supreme Court’s severe strictures on the Electoral Bonds Scandal,” he added.