Rules for Citizenship Amendment Act ready, likely to be notified before Lok Sabha poll 2024Â
Rules for Citizenship Amendment Act ready, likely to be notified before Lok Sabha poll 2024
After four years of widespread protests following the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the government is now prepared with the CAA rules and intends to implement them well before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This move follows criticism directed at the Union Government for not promptly notifying the CAA rules, which offer Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
“We are going to issue the rules for the CAA soon. Once the rules are issued, the law can be implemented and those eligible can be granted Indian citizenship,” the government official said.
“The rules are ready and the online portal is also in place and the entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year when they entered India without travel documents. No document will be sought from the applicants,” the official added.
Passed in December 2019, the CAA sparked widespread protests due to objections about excluding persecuted Muslim migrants. Critics labeled the bill as “discriminatory” and an assault on India’s secular fabric. The act fast-tracked Indian nationality for persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
