Citizenship Amendment Act rules ready, set to be notified before Lok Sabha elections 2024

Four years after the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) triggered massive protests in the country, the government is ready with CAA rules and will likely implement them much before the Lok Sabha elections 2024, a senior government official told news agency PTI on Tuesday. The development comes as the Union Government faced criticism over not notifying the CAA rules which grant Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

"We are going to issue the rules for the CAA soon. Once the rules are issued, the law can be implemented and those eligible can be granted Indian citizenship," the government official said.

When asked if the CAA rules will be notified before the Lok Sabha elections 2024, the official said, "Yes, much before that." "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," the official added.

2019 CAA protests
The CAA was passed in December 2019 and led to massive protests across the country as a section of citizens objected to the exclusion of persecuted Muslim migrants in the bill. The protestors called the bill “discriminatory" and an attack on the secular fabric of India.

The act expedited the process of granting Indian nationality to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, who entered India till December 31, 2014.

The protestors claimed that the government is working with the assumption that Muslims can't be persecuted, if they are the majority in a country, whereas that is not true for communities like Ahmadiyya in Pakistan or Hazaras in Afghanistan, who face religious persecution in their countries.

Delay in notifying rules
The government faced backlash from some pro-CAA citizens who questioned the delay in the notification of the rules under the act which is depriving many persecuted migrants to get the Indian citizenship. The BJP-led Union Government tacitly used the issue during various elections but continued the suspense on the rules.

Last month, Union Home Minister Amit Shah again raised the CAA pitch as he said that no one can stop the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.