Politics
Union Minister Shantanu Thakur Guarantees Implementation of CAA Across India Within 7 Days
Union Minister Shantanu Thakur has claimed that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) would be implemented across India within the next seven days. Speaking in Bengali at a public gathering in Kakdwip, South 24 Parganas in West Bengal, Thakur assured the crowd that the CAA would not only be implemented in West Bengal but also in every state of India within a week.
Thakur took the opportunity to criticize the Trinamool Congress government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He questioned the government’s claim that having a voter and an Aadhaar card makes one a citizen eligible to vote, pointing out that thousands of people had been deprived of their voting rights in the state.
Reacting to Thakur’s statement, Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of using the CAA as a political tool to scare people and gain votes. She reiterated that everyone residing in the border areas of West Bengal is a citizen and allowed to vote.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, passed by Parliament in December 2019 and receiving presidential assent, grants Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. The implementation of the CAA has been met with widespread protests across the country.
The rules for the CAA are expected to be notified soon, according to a senior government official, before the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has been firm in its stance that the CAA will not be halted and accused Mamata Banerjee of misleading the public on the issue.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has already granted Indian citizenship to thousands of individuals from non-Muslim minority communities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act of 1955. A total of 1,414 individuals were granted Indian citizenship through registration or naturalization between April 2021 and December 2021.
The guarantees made by Shantanu Thakur regarding the implementation of the CAA have sparked discussions and debates about the controversial act once again, as the government prepares to roll out its associated rules within the next few days.
