Edited by Deepali Verma
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which was passed by the Parliament in December 2019, will be notified and implemented before the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
“CAA was promised by the Congress government. When the country was divided and the minorities were persecuted in those countries, Congress assured the refugees that they were welcome in Bharat and that they would be provided with Bharatiya citizenship,” remarked Shah at the ET NOW Global Summit 2024.
Shah laid plenty emphasis on CAA being brought in force to provide citizenship and not “take away anyone’s citizenship”. “Minorities in our country, especially the Muslim community, are being provoked. CAA cannot snatch away anyone’s citizenship as it has no such provision in the Act. CAA is an act that provides citizenship to refugees who were persecuted in Bangladesh as well as Pakistan,” he said.
The Modi government introduced the CAA in 2019, the CAA aims to give Bharatiya citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, as well as Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians, who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and arrived in Bharat before December 31, 2014.
Meanwhile, in conversation about the upcoming polls, Shah said he was confident the Narendra Modi government will return to power, with the BJP getting 370 seats and the NDA more than 400.
Shah asserted that there lies no suspense over the result of the Lok Sabha polls and even the Congress and other opposition parties have come to a realisation that they will again have to sit in the opposition benches.
“We have abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. So we are of the belief that the people of the country will bless the BJP with 370 seats as well as the NDA with more than 400 seats,” Shah said at the ET NOW Global Business Summit 2024.
