 "Centre gives citizenship to over 350 people under CAA; All you need to know")
Amid Lok Sabha elections, more than 350 people received Indian citizenship on Wednesday under the newly notified Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, said news reports. While the first set of 14 people received it in the national capital, the rest were granted nationality digitally in other parts of the country.
Some applications were cleared even before the notification of rules in March this year, the Economic Times reported citing officials.
The report added that the Election Commission of India (ECI) was also informed regarding the grant of citizenship certificates since the model code of conduct (MCC) was in force.
Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla handed over the citizenship certificates to the 14 people in the national capital after their applications were processed online through a designated portal.
The development comes after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had made implementing the CAA a key poll plank as part of its manifesto.
Home Minister Amit Shah told ET last week that more than 25,000 applications were received under CAA and the process was on to issue citizenship certificates. On Wednesday, Shah in a post on 'X' called it a "historic day".
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What is the Citizenship Amendment Act?
On March 11, the Centre notified rules to implement the CAA. The law grants eligibility for Indian citizenship to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Parsi migrants from the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014.
The government has said that in the three Muslim-majority countries, the six religious minorities have faced persecution, making it India's moral obligation to provide them shelter.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, was introduced in the Parliament on July 15, 2016, aiming to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955.
On December 11, 2019, the Rajya Sabha approved the Bill with 125 votes in favour and 99 against. This Bill marked the first instance of granting citizenship based on religion. It later received assent from the then President Ram Nath Kovind, turning it into an Act.
Protests against CAA
On December 15 2019, student-police clashes broke out at Aligarh Muslim University and Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University when police stormed the university campuses. The next day, women began an indefinite sit-in protest at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh, while protests broke out in other parts of the country as well. By January 2020, a series of pleas were filed in the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the CAA.
By the end of January 2020, the clouds of violence around protests were starting to hover. On January 30, a man opened fire at student demonstrators outside Jamia, resulting in injuries to many. Subsequently, in February, communal clashes broke out in Delhi's northeast region.
The Shaheen Bagh protest came to an end when Prime Minister Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 21 due to slow down the spread of Covid-19. On March 24, 2020, the Delhi Police cleared the protest site and removed art installations and graffiti. Eventually, the protests subsided as the government did not proceed with notifying the rules to implement the law.
According to reports, in the two months after the CAA was enacted, 69 people were killed in various incidents across the country. While six people were killed in Assam, 19 died in Uttar Pradesh, 2 in Karnataka and 42 were killed by February 28, 2020, in the communal riots in Delhi.
Opposition’s Lok Sabha poll promise of repealing CAA
The Opposition parties have been severely critical of the Act, calling it a means of discrimination. Several Opposition leaders including West Bengal Mamata Banerjee have termed the controversial law as “dangerous,” which they believe could “foster” communal division in the country.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, in April, had said the controversial law will be repealed in the first session of Parliament after the INDIA Bloc forms the government at the Centre.
"There is a long list of laws among which five laws will be absolutely repealed. Take it from me, I am the chairman of the manifesto committee. I wrote every word of it, I know what the intention was. The CAA will be repealed, not amended. We have made it clear," Chidambaram said.
A brief timeline of key events:
December 11, 2019: Citizenship Amendment Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha.
December 15, 2019: Police-students clash as police enter Jamia Millia Islamia University campus forcibly
December 16, 2019: Women start an indefinite sit-in at Shaheen Bagh in protest of CAA and coercive actions of the police against students
December 19, 2019: January 2020: Pleas filed in Supreme Court challenging CAA
February 2020: Communal violence breaks out in Delhi
March 2020: Covid lockdown begins, Shaheen Bagh vacated
December 2023: Amit Shah reinvigorates his promise of implementing CAA ahead of 2024 LS elections
March 2024: Centre notified rules to implement the CAA ahead of the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections
May 2024: First citizenship certificates handed out to over 350 people