On Monday, Union Minister of State for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, Shantanu Thakur, declared that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) would be implemented nationwide within a week.
Thakur, a BJP MP from Bongaon, a region predominantly inhabited by the Matua community in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, assured swift implementation of the contentious legislation during an interview with a news channel.
Enacted by the BJP-led government in 2019, the CAA aims to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.
Thakur, also a leader of the Matua community, emphasized, “The CAA will be implemented very soon. It will be implemented within seven days. This is my guarantee.”
Thakur had made a similar comment on Sunday and consistently claims that the CAA will be implemented in the country ahead of the Lok Sabha polls this year.
The Matua community, constituting a significant portion of West Bengal’s Scheduled Caste population, has been migrating to the state since the 1950s due to religious persecution in erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Political parties in West Bengal actively seek the support of the Matuas, considering their significant population and tendency to vote together as a valuable voting bloc similar to minorities. The Matua community is expected to benefit the most from the CAA’s implementation.
Thakur’s assertion on the CAA’s implementation comes amid reports suggesting that the rules for the legislation would be notified “much before” the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections.
His remarks prompted strong reactions from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state, vehemently opposing the CAA and labeling it as “divisive.”
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh stated, “Our party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have clearly said that CAA won’t be implemented in West Bengal. The BJP leaders are attempting political gimmickry by making such false promises before the Lok Sabha elections.”
Union Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated last month that the implementation of CAA is inevitable as it is the law of the land. He accused Banerjee of misleading people on the CAA issue during a BJP meeting in Kolkata. The TMC has consistently opposed the CAA, with Banerjee alleging that the BJP is “exploiting” the citizenship issue for political gain.
The promise of implementing the controversial CAA served as a major electoral platform for the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha and assembly polls in West Bengal. Party leaders believe that it played a pivotal role in the BJP’s rise in the state.
According to the manual of parliamentary procedures, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent or seek an extension from the committees on subordinate legislation in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been obtaining regular extensions from parliamentary committees for framing the rules.
The CAA amends the Indian citizenship act to accept illegal migrants who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, and who entered India before 2014, following religious persecutions.
The bill does not mention Muslims and other communities who fled from the same or other neighboring countries. Refugees from Sri Lankan Tamils in India, Rohingyas from Myanmar, and Tibetan refugees are also not mentioned in the bill.
The proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be an official record of all legal citizens of India. Individuals would need to provide a prescribed set of documents before a specified cutoff date to be included in it.
The amendment has faced widespread criticism for allegedly discriminating on the basis of religion, particularly for excluding Muslims.
Protestors against the amendment demand its scrapping and oppose the implementation of the nationwide NRC. Concerns have been raised among the Indian Muslim community, fearing the bureaucratic exercise of the NRC may impact all citizens, requiring them to prove their citizenship for inclusion in the registry.
In 2019-20, Protesters also voiced opposition against authoritarianism and police crackdowns in universities to suppress protests. Dozens of people were killed during the protests while many others continue to be behind the bars for their role in the protests.