The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) will be put into effect prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, according to Union Home Minister Amit Shah‘s statement on Saturday. After passing into law in December 2019, the CAA seeks to grant citizenship to refugees who have faced persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The aim of this amendment is to allow illegal migrants who are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, Christian, or from other countries to apply for Indian citizenship. This will change the Citizenship Act of 1955.
It is important to Shah that the legislation seeks to confer citizenship, not to “take away anyone’s citizenship.”
“CAA is a national initiative…It will be informed prior to the polls. There ought to be no ambiguity regarding it. Provocation is directed towards minorities in our nation, particularly the Muslim community.There is no clause in the Act that allows CAA to take away someone’s citizenship. Shah made this statement at the ET Now-Global Business summit in Delhi: “The purpose of the CAA is to grant citizenship to refugees who were persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan.”
Shah further claimed that the prior Congress administration had “reneged” on its promise to carry out the country’s CAA implementation. “The Congress government made a promise with CAA. Amidst the division of the country and the persecution of minorities in those territories, Congress guaranteed the refugees of India’s welcome and the granting of Indian citizenship. Shah was quoted by ANI as saying, “Now they are reversing course.
Protests around the country have been widespread and controversial
Protests around the country have been widespread and controversial, with the CAA’s implementation being the subject of controversy. However, since the Act contains no such clause, Amit Shah has reassured that no one’s citizenship can be revoked by the CAA. Additionally, he has stressed that the CAA is not meant to revoke anyone’s Indian citizenship; rather, it is meant to confer citizenship to individuals who have experienced persecution in their native countries. As the Lok Sabha elections approach, Amit Shah has voiced optimism about the BJP’s and NDA’s chances, projecting a sizable win and a third term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s direction.
Home Minister Amit Shah responded to the notion that parties such as the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), led by Jayant Choudhary, might join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) by saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pro-family but anti-politics. Shah stated that talks are still going on but that nothing has been decided when asked directly about the SAD. He emphasized that the 2024 elections would be a choice between development and those who merely offer slogans, rather than between the NDA and the INDIA opposition bloc.
Shah argued that Rahul Gandhi had no right to lead the Bharat Jodo Yatra because his party was behind the 1947 partition of the country. When Shah spoke of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, he said that for 500–550 years, the nation’s citizens had felt that the temple ought to be built where they thought Lord Ram was born.
