Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said on December 5 that the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act will likely be implemented from January 2021. He said the Centre is keen to grant citizenship to West Bengal's large refugee population and hence wants to implement the law at the soonest. This statement comes ahead of Bengal elections, where the saffron party is trying to make in-roads desperately.
The BJP National General Secretary has accused the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal of not being sympathetic towards the refugees.
Speaking on the sidelines of BJP's 'Aar Noy Anyay' (no more injustice) campaign in North 24 Parganas, he said: "We are hopeful that the process of granting citizenship to refugees under the CAA will begin from January next year."
He added: "The Centre has passed the CAA with the honest intention of granting citizenship to persecuted refugees coming to our country from neighbouring nations."
Reacting to Vijayvargiya's comment, senior Trinamool leader Firhad Hakim said the saffron party is trying to fool the people of Bengal. He said: "What does the BJP mean by citizenship? If the Matuas are not citizens, how come they voted in Assembly and parliamentary polls year after year? The BJP should stop fooling the people of West Bengal."
Notably, Matuas are East Pakistanis (Bangladeshis) who settled down in Bengal after escaping religious persecution. The community has an estimated population of 30 lakh in the state. Some BJP leaders are worried that delayed implementation of CAA might turn refugee voters, including the Matuas, against the party during the Bengal Assembly elections 2021.
The new Citizenship Act seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and Parsis who fled to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014 to escape religious persecution. However, several leaders and noted personalities have raised questions over the intent of the Act, which they believe to be a nefarious design to disenfranchise the Muslims of India.
With PTI inputs
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