CAA rules likely to be notified on Monday
New Delhi, Mar 11: The rules for implementation of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) are likely to be notified on Monday to facilitate the granting of citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, according to sources.
Once the CAA rules are issued, the Modi government will start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- who had come to India till December 31, 2014.
The CAA was passed in December 2019 and subsequently got the president's assent but there were protests in several parts of the country against it. Over a hundred people lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action.
The law could not come into effect so far as rules have to be notified for its implementation.
According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should be framed within six months of presidential assent or the government has to seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been taking extensions at regular intervals from the parliamentary committee for framing the rules.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has readied a portal for the convenience of the applicants as 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, an official said.
On December 27, 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that no one can stop the implementation of the CAA as it is the law of the land and accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue.
Addressing a party meeting in Kolkata, Shah said it is the BJP's commitment to implement the CAA.
The TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, has been opposing the CAA since the beginning.
The promise of implementing the controversial CAA was a major poll plank of the BJP in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in West Bengal.
The saffron party's leaders consider it a plausible factor that led to the rise of the BJP in Bengal.
Meanwhile, in the last two years, over 30 District Magistrates and Home Secretaries of nine states have been given powers to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
According to the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs for 2021-22, from April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, a total of 1,414 foreigners belonging to these non-Muslim minority communities from the three countries were given Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The nine states where Indian citizenship by registration or naturalisation is given under the Citizenship Act, 1955 to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra.
Interestingly, authorities of none of the districts of Assam and West Bengal, where the issue is politically very sensitive, have been given the powers so far.
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Ex-PM Devegowda warns opposition of electoral losses if they continue to allege 'vote chori'
New Delhi (PTI): Former Prime Minister H D Devegowda on Monday said the Opposition parties would "suffer" if they continue to raise allegations of "vote chori" and create suspicion in the minds of voters by blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.
Participating in a discussion on election reforms in the Rajya Sabha, he criticised the Opposition for making a mockery about the Prime Minister "in the streets and on the public platform".
"This (India) is a very big country. A large country. Congress may be in three states. Remember my friends please, by using the words 'vote chori' you are going to suffer in the coming days. You are not going to win the battle," Devegowda said, referring to the Opposition members.
He asked what the Opposition is going to earn by "blaming Narendra Modi's leadership and creating a suspicion in the mind of the voters" through the claims of "vote chori".
"What has happened to their minds? Let them rectify," Devegowda said.
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The former prime minister said that during his over seven decades of public life, he has never raised such issues of vote theft despite facing defeat in elections.
He also cited a letter written by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru regarding inclusion of "18,000 votes" (voters) in Kerala.
"Why I am telling this (because) during the Nehru period also, there were certain lapses in the electoral system," said Devegowda, who was the prime minister between June 1, 1996 and April 21, 1997.
He said that the Congress party faced defeat in the recent Bihar elections despite raising the issues of mistakes in the electoral rolls.
"What happened after that even after so much review (of voters list). Think (for) yourself! You got six MLAs," the senior Janata Dal (Secular) leader said.
Devegowda questioned the Opposition as to why they want to make allegations against the prime minister on the issue of the voters list?
"Election Commission is there. Supreme Court is there. The Election Commission has given direction to all the state units to rectify all these things," he said.
Devegowda said people of the country have full confidence in Narendra Modi's government and it will come back to power after the next Lok Sabha elections as well.
K R Suresh Reddy, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party's Rajya Sabha member from Telangana, said that electoral reforms are the backbone for a healthy democracy.
He said a large and diverse nation like Indi needs clean electoral rolls.
Asserting that strict re-verification should not become a mechanism for exclusion, Reddy said no eligible voter should lose their right to vote simply because accessing paperwork is difficult.
He said while the concern definitely is on the voters' exclusion, "we should also be equally concerned about the percentage of voting."
"What is happening in voting today? Once the election ends, the drama begins. The biggest challenge that the Indian democracy has been facing in spite of two major Constitutional amendments has been the anti-defection. Anti-defection is the name of the game today, especially in smaller states, especially where the legislatures are small in number," Reddy said.
The senior BRS leader suggested creation of a parliamentary committee "which would constantly look into the defection" and "ways and means to cutting that".
AIADMK's M Thambidurai raised the issues related to election campaigning.
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"Election campaigns are one of the important election processes. In that, political parties must be given the proper chance to campaign," he said and cited problems faced by his party in Tamil Nadu in this regard.
Thambidurai said political parties were facing hardships in Tamil Nadu to conduct public meetings and to express their views to the public.
YSRCP's Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy stressed on bringing electoral reforms at both the state and national levels.
He also suggested replacing Electronic Voting Machines with paper ballots in all future elections.
"EVM may be efficient but can't be trusted. Paper ballot may not be efficient but can be trusted. You need trust in democracy," Reddy added.
