Bengal BJP refugee cell says people apprehensive about future of CAA

With Union Home Ministry seeking more time for framing rules under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the West Bengal BJP refugee cell on Wednesday claimed that the delay is fuelling apprehensions among the community about the future of the law.

Under the CAA, The Centre wants to grant Indian nationality to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, and the Presidential nod was received the next day. Subsequently, it was notified by the home ministry. However, the law is yet to be implemented as rules under the CAA are yet to be framed.

The Union Home Ministry recently approached the parliamentary committees seeking more time for framing rules under the law.

Senior BJP leader and convenor state BJP refugee cell, Mohit Roy, asserted that the failure to frame the rules and delay in implementing the law are leading to confusion among the people and the state's refugee community.

''During the assembly poll campaign last year, the party leadership had repeatedly said that the CAA would be implemented very soon. A large part of the refugee community had supported the party for this poll promise,'' Roy said in a press statement.

But the delay in implementing the CAA and repeated extension of time given to frame the rules are sending out a wrong message among the people, he claimed.

''The delay is also fuelling apprehensions among the masses, and it has emboldened the forces who had opposed the law and they are again planning to hit the streets,'' Roy added.

According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent or seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Since the home ministry could not frame rules within six months of the enactment of the CAA, it sought time for the committees -- first in June 2020 and then four more times. The fifth extension came to an end on January 10.

''A lot of people from the refugee community face many problems. We are getting calls every day. People are asking when the CAA will be implemented, and we have no answers. After the repeal of the three farm laws, there are apprehensions among a section of the masses that this too might have the same fate,'' Roy told PTI.

He said he has written several letters to the union home ministry regarding this matter and requested speedy implementation of the law.

''The citizenship issue is a very vital issue for the refugee population of Bengal. Nearly eighty per cent of those who will be benefitted from the law will be from Bengal,'' he added.

Reacting to Roy's statement, senior Trinamool Congress leader Sougata Roy alleged that the BJP has tried to fool the people of the state through false promises of citizenship.

''The BJP has never been serious about citizenship. They only misguided a section of the masses through false promises. Now the truth is out in the open,'' he said.

The promise of CAA implementation, which has been a major poll plank of the BJP in the last Lok Sabha and assembly polls, is considered by its leaders as a plausible factor that led to the rise of the party in Bengal, having bagged 18 parliamentary seats in 2019 parliamentary polls and 77 seats in the assembly election.

Member of the Matua community, who make for a large chunk of the state's Scheduled Caste population, had been migrating to West Bengal since the 1950s, primarily due to religious persecution in erstwhile East Pakistan and then Bangladesh.

With an estimated 30 lakh Matuas in the state, the community has influence in at least five Lok Sabha seats and nearly 50 assembly seats in Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas districts.

The Central government has already made it clear that the Indian citizenship to the eligible beneficiaries of the CAA will be given only after rules under the legislation are notified.

The objective of the CAA is to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities like Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Those from these communities who had come to India till December 31, 2014, facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants and given Indian citizenship.

After the CAA was passed by Parliament, widespread protests were witnessed in different parts of the country. Many of the protestors saw the law as a threat to their cultural identity and livelihood.