Citizenship Amendment Act will be implemented before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections - Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has stated that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be notified and implemented before the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The CAA is an act of the country…It will be notified before the polls. There should be no confusion around it.

Shah emphasized that the CAA is an act to provide citizenship and not to take away anyone's citizenship, and that it aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants.

“Minorities in our country, and especially our Muslim community, are being provoked…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,” Shah said while speaking at the ET Now-Global Business summit in Delhi.

"CAA is an Act of the country, it will be definitely be notified. It will be notified before the polls. CAA will be implemented by the polls, and there should be no confusion around it," Shah said speaking at the ET Now-Global Business summit here in the national capital. CAA was passed by the Parliament in December 2019.

"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.

Under the CAA brought in by the Narendra Modi government, Indian nationality will be granted to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who had come to India till December 31, 2014.