With the Lok Sabha elections due in next couple of months, the Centre on Monday announced the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, a move that comes four years after the law was passed which paves the way for citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The CAA rules came into force in the country with immediate effect as per a Gazette notification.

Home Minister Amit Shah said with CAA implementation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered on another commitment and realised the promise of makers of our Constitution. “CAA rules enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan to acquire citizenship in India,” Shah said in a statement.

Now with the notification, the BJP-led Modi Government will start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — from the three countries.

“These rules, called the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 will enable the persons eligible under CAA-2019 to apply for the grant of Indian citizenship. The applications will be submitted in a completely online mode for which a web portal has been provided,” a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

Over 100 people lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action and security was beefed up in Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Millia Islamia and other areas of the national Capital where anti-CAA protests were held in the past.

Security has also been stepped up in Assam as the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and 30 indigenous organisations said it will burn copies of the CAA across the State. It also announced a series of protest programmes, while also taking forward its legal battle against the Act.

While the ruling BJP party expressed their delight as the Modi Government has made up to its one more commitment after abrogation of Article 370, Ram Temple at Ayodhya and now the CAA, Opposition parties like Congress and TMC alleged that the timing of notifying the CAA rules evidently designed to polarise the coming Lok Sabha elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam. TMC said it will oppose the Act tooth and nail.

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, with many Opposition parties speaking out against the law calling it “discriminatory”. The law could not come into effect as rules had not been notified till now.

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. No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said.

On December 27, 2023, Shah said 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.

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.

In the last two years, over 30 district magistrates and Home Secretaries in nine States have been given powers to grant 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 naturalisation 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. 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.

Delhi BJP vice president Kapil Mishra, who was at the centre of a pro-CAA stir in Delhi in 2020, welcomed the implementation of the CAA saying the whole country, especially the national Capital, paid a big price during protests against the law. Mishra’s February 2020 speech at Jafrabad against the anti- CAA protests was alleged to have led to riots that claimed over 50 lives, injured hundreds and caused massive loss of property in north East Delhi.

Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh alleged that the announcement is yet another attempt to “manage the headlines” after the Supreme Court’s strictures on the electoral bonds issue. “Let me be very clear that we will oppose anything that discriminates against people. Let them bring out the rules, then we will speak on the issue after going through the rules,” Mamata said at a hurried Press conference.

Mamata too said she would oppose the CAA as it discriminates against groups of people. Stating that the CAA and the NRC are sensitive to West Bengal and the Northeast, Mamata said she doesn’t want unrest before the Lok Sabha elections.

While AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said the Act is divisive and based on Godse’s thought that “wanted to reduce Muslims to second-class citizens”, Kerala CM Vijayan described CAA as a communally divisive law and asserted that it will not be implemented in the State.

Owaisi alleged along with NPR-NRC, CAA is meant to only target Muslims and it serves no other purpose. “Understand the chronology. First the election season will come, next will be the CAA rules,” he said.

“Indians who came out on the streets to oppose CAA NPR NRC will have no choice but to oppose it again,” Owaisi said in a social media post while stating that his objections to CAA remain the same. Batting for asylum for “anyone who is persecuted,” the Hyderabad MP said citizenship must not be based on religion or nationality.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav attacked the Centre terming CAA notification as BJPs’ game of distraction. He also said the BJP Government at the Centre should also explain why lakhs of citizens gave up their citizenship of the country during their 10-year rule. “The BJP Government should explain why lakhs of citizens gave up their citizenship of the country during their 10 years of rule. No matter what happens tomorrow you have to give account of ‘Electoral Bond’ and then also of the ‘care fund’,” Yadav added.