Centre Keeps Its Promise To Matua Voters In Bengal, Notifies CAA Rules A Week Ahead Of Poll Dates

Weeks after Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared that no one can stop the CAA law  and that  it would be implemented before the Lok Sabha elections, the MHA notified the CAA  rules  paving the way for its implementation across the country. The law makes it easier for Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Parsi refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, to get Indian citizenship. “The applications will be submitted in a completely online mode for which a web portal has been provided,” a MHA official posted  on the ministry  X handle. The law aims to give citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from these countries, who came to India before December 31, 2014. CAA was an integral part of  BJP’s 2019 manifesto and it is interesting that to see that  it is being notified just a week before next elections schedule is set to be announced. Interestingly after the  CAA was passed in 2019 protests had broken out in several parts of the country. Minorities in some areas like Shaheen Bagh in  Delhi were encouraged to  do sit-in protest . ” The CAA cannot snatch away anyone’s citizenship because there is no provision in the Act. The CAA is an act to provide citizenship to refugees who were persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan,” Amit Shah recently clarified adding  how the law was once  a Congress promise .Incidentally, the law is very crucial to the Matua community –Dalit  Namasudra community, which migrated from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1947 and during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. They had backed the BJP. TMC  cannot afford to oppose CAA. As for Assam students protesting against  the  CAA the , rules have set a 2014  cut-off and retained  exceptions as made in the 6th schedule to the Constitution and the areas covered under “The Inner Line’ notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 “.