‘Thousands’ granted citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act: Centre
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New Delhi: Union minister Nityanand Rai told Parliament on Wednesday that ‘Thousands were granted’ Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, while refusing to give specific numbers.
Rai’s response came after Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev claimed that only 350 persons were accorded citizenship under the Act, Scroll reported.
Passed by Parliament in December 2019, the Act was meant to facilitate citizenship to refugees belonging to six minority religious communities except Muslims hailing from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Despite notifying the rules under the Act in March 2024, marking an end to controversies surrounding it, the Union government has not supplied details of the number of application approved under the Act.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah reportedly said in May that more than 25,000 applications had been received under the Act.
The Assam government stated in March that only two of the 39 applications it received were granted Indian citizenship so far with 18 being examined while 19 of them were ‘closed’.
The notification of the rules under the Citizenship Amendment Act came after protests across the country in 2019 and 2020 accusing the government of discrimination against Muslims.
Indian Muslims expressed concerns that law could be used alongside the National Register of Citizens, which aims to identify undocumented immigrants, to harass and disenfranchise them.
After passing the Act in Parliament, Shah reportedly said that law could benefit ‘lakhs and crores’ of people without explaining where he got the numbers.