Amit Shah said that the CAA will benefit the Matua community of West Bengal.
Calcutta:
The wheels of the center’s controversial citizenship law will start rolling once the COVID-19 vaccination ends, Union Interior Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday in an assurance to a Hindu immigrant community in West Bengal earlier. of the elections.
The push to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act or CAA will benefit the Matua community, Shah said, among other non-Muslim immigrants who arrived from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before 2015.
The interior minister said its implementation will not affect the citizenship status of Indian minorities and accused opposition parties of misleading minorities about the law widely criticized as discriminatory as it makes religion a criterion for nationality. india for the first time.
Shah said the Modi government had promised in 2018 that it would introduce a new citizenship law and kept it when the BJP returned to power in 2019. But the implementation of the CAA had to be kept on hold after the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he said.
“Mamata didi said we made a false promise. She started to oppose the CAA and said she will never allow it. The BJP always keeps the promises it makes. We have brought this law and the refugees will get citizenship,” he said.
“As soon as the Covid vaccination process is complete, the process of granting citizenship under the CAA will begin,” he said, addressing a rally in West Bengal’s Thakurnagar, a stronghold of the Matua community.
The Matuas, originally from former East Pakistan, are a Hindu section that migrated to India during the partition and after the creation of Bangladesh. Many of them have been granted Indian citizenship, but a considerable part of the population still awaits the rights.
With an estimated population of 30 lakh in the state, the community can tip the balance in at least four Lok Sabha seats or more than 30 assembly districts in Nadia, 24 northern and southern Parganas districts. behind the Trinamool Congress, but had supported the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A section of the BJP state leadership fears that the delay and confusion over the implementation of the CAA could cause them to turn against the party.
Shah, whose party has made religion a centerpiece of its election campaign likely in April-May this year, said Mamata Banerjee will not be in a position to oppose the implementation of the CAA as she will not be the chief minister. after the center.
The CAA, which came into effect last January, had sparked widespread protests as many feared that, coupled with the nationally planned National Registry of Citizens or NRC, it would result in thousands of Muslims losing their citizenship.
However, speaking at an earlier rally in Cooch Behar in the state, where he tried to woo the Rajbongshi schedule caste community, Shah avoided mention of CAA as the community is known to be not very happy with the law.
The community has complained that many of them are missing names in the NRC in Assam and perhaps that is why Mr. Shah met Anant Roy, a key Rajbongshi leader, in Assam before coming to Bengal, where he could obtain the Caste vote of 24 percent is critical for the BJP to counter the minority vote of 27 percent seen solidly against it.
(With PTI inputs)
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