The Ministry of Home Affairs has stated that the Union government has started to grant citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act in the states of West Bengal, Haryana and Uttarakhand.
The Home Ministry further added that these applications were granted citizenship of India by their respective State Empowered Committees.
"The process of granting citizenship certificates under the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 has now commenced in the State of West Bengal, where the first set of applications from the State were today granted citizenship by the Empowered Committee, West Bengal," read an official release from the Union Ministry.
"Empowered Committees of Haryana and Uttarakhand also granted citizenship to the first set of applicants in their respective states today," MHA added further.
This statement from the MHA comes weeks after the ministry issued its first set of citizenship certificates to 14 applicants on May 15 in New Delhi.
Despite the Union government issuing citizenship through CAA in West Bengal, the Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee has stated that she will not allow CAA and NRC to be implemented in West Bengal. The West Bengal CM also rejected the call for implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was enacted in December 2019 in order to grant Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.
The presidential assent for CAA was issued on March 11 after a delay of four years. Based on this, the union government began rolling out the first citizenship certificates.
(With inputs from PTI)
