The Centre on Wednesday started the process of granting citizenship certificates under the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, in West Bengal. The first set of applicants from the state were granted citizenship by the Empowered Committee today.
The Empowered Committees of Haryana and Uttarakhand also granted citizenship today to the first set of applicants under the CAA.
The government had notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules on March 11, 2024. The notification of rules by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) came four years after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was passed by Parliament in December 2019.
Two months after the rules were notified, the first set of citizenship certificates under the CAA was issued to 14 people on May 15.
The CAA amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to provide 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 before December 31, 2014, due to facing religious persecution in their home countries.
The legislation has been a subject of intense debate and widespread protests across India.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in Bengal has repeatedly expressed their opposition to the implementation of the CAA.
Banerjee called the CAA “an insult to humanity” and a threat to the foundational principles of the nation.