NEW DELHI: With Union Minister and BJP leader Shantanu Thakur claiming that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act- CAA would be implemented across India within the next seven days, indications emerged from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that everything was ready for its smooth rollout.Sources said that the rules for rolling out the CAA were ready and the online portal was also in place, as the entire process would be online. Eligible people would be granted Indian citizenship on their online applications only, they added. “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,” a source said.Even as it could be a big move on the part of the ruling BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections this year, sources, however, said a final decision to notify the rules under the CAA would be taken at the highest level in the government.The grapevine in the corridor of power is that the government has allowed a minister and MP from West Bengal to make such an announcement to test the waters ahead of the elections, as the move would have its maximum impact in the state.Thakur made the statement while speaking at a gathering in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas.Under the CAA brought in by the Narendra Modi government, Indian nationality will be granted to persecuted migrants from minority communities — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who had come to India till December 31, 2014.There were massive protests in some parts of the country after the CAA was passed by Parliament in December 2019 and received the presidential assent subsequently. More than a hundred people lost their lives during the protests or police action after Parliament passed the law.On December 27 last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that no one can stop the implementation of the CAA as it is the law of the land and had accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue.Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation, as since 2020, the MHA has been taking extension in regular interval from the parliamentary committees for framing the rules.Meanwhile, in the last two years, more than 30 district magistrates and home secretaries of nine states have been given powers to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act of 1955. The nine states are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra.According to the annual report of the MHA for 2021-22, from April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, a total of 1,414 foreigners belonging to these minority communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were given Indian citizenship by registration or naturalisation under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
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