The Union Cabinet has cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there, PTI reported.
The bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, in order to grant Indian nationality to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who come to India after facing religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan even if they don't possess proper documents. This was an election promise of the BJP in the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The bill to amend the the Citizenship Act, 1955, is likely to be introduced in the Parliament in the next two days.
Over the past weeks, the home ministry had held marathon talks with leaders of socio-cultural bodies, students' organisations and political parties from the northeastern states on the bills. Those invited for discussions included North East Students' Organisation, All Bodo Students' Union and students bodies from Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
Leaders of several political parties—both regional and state chiefs of national political parties—and heads of socio-cultural organisations were also invited for the discussions. The home ministry convened the meetings in the wake of strong protests registered by many organisations against the bill in the Northeast.
A large section of people and organisations in the northeast have opposed the bill. On November 28, twelve non-BJP MPs from the region urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to exclude the northeastern states from the purview of the bill, saying if it comes into effect, the tribal population of the region will be vulnerable to displacement.
Congress, Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and a few other political parties have been steadfastly opposing the bill, claiming that citizenship can't be given on the basis of religion.
-Inputs from PTI
