In a major development, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday announced that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be approved and implemented before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The Parliament enacted the measure in December 2019. Speaking at the ET Now-Global Business summit in Delhi, Amit Shah stated: “CAA is an Act of the country, it will be definitely be notified…It will be notified before the polls…There should be no confusion around it."
Amit Shah further accused the Congress of going back on its vow to implement the CAA. "CAA was a promise of the Congress government. When the country was divided and the minorities were persecuted in those countries, Congress had assured the refugees that they were welcome in India and they will be provided with Indian citizenship. Now they are backtracking," Shah said.
Shah emphasised that the CAA was established to offer citizenship, not to "take away anyone's citizenship".
He stated: "Minorities in our country, particularly the Muslim minority, are being provoked. CAA cannot deprive somebody of their citizenship since the Act has no provision for it. CAA is a legislation that grants citizenship to refugees who have been persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan."
The CAA, introduced by the Modi administration in 2019, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who came in India before December 31, 2014.
Meanwhile, commenting about the approaching elections, Shah expressed confidence that the Narendra Modi administration will return to power, with the BJP winning 370 seats and the NDA winning over 400.
Shah said that there is no uncertainty about the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections, and that even the Congress and other opposition parties have accepted that they would once again have to sit on the opposition benches.