Only 8 applied for citizenship under CAA in Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said only eight people have applied for citizenship under the CAA from the state so far.

Speaking at a press conference here, Sarma noted that out of these applicants, only two have proceeded to attend interviews with relevant authorities.

The Centre on March 11 implemented the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 CAA by notifying the rules, four years after the law was passed by Parliament to fast-track citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who came to India before December 31, 2014, and stayed here for five years.

"We conducted outreach programmes in the Barak valley and approached many-Hindu Bengali families and asked them to apply for citizenship under CAA. However, they refused to do so saying that they would prefer fighting their cases at the Foreigners Tribunal (FT)," Sarma said.

Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies exclusive to Assam to decide the nationality issue of doubtful citizens He claimed that most of the Hindu-Bengali families, who were not included in the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), told him that they possessed necessary documents to prove their Indian citizenship and preferred the FT route than applying through the CAA.

Legal experts said people declared foreigners by the FTs can subsequently apply under the CAA if their nationality verdict is unfavourable.

"While a case for citizenship is going on, there is no question of applying for the same under a new law," a senior advocate said.

Asked whether the Assam government is dropping cases in Foreigners Tribunals (FT) against Hindu-Bengalis, Sarma clarified, "This is misleading. We cannot drop any case. We are simply advising that before initiating a case, individuals should apply through the CAA portal. Even if a case is filed, there won't be any outcome because these people are eligible for citizenship."

The Chief Minister said he will request the Advocate General to flag the issue of CAA so that FTs can give time to people whose cases are going on to apply for citizenship under the newly implemented law.

"I can't give a direction to court to pause while deciding the citizenship cases. The FT judges themselves have to decide and they know the latest situation," he added.

Asked about such a low number of applications in CAA, Sarma said the opposition myth that 15-20 lakh Bangladeshis will get citizenship in Assam has been busted completely.

"In the anti-CAA movement, five Assamese youths lost their lives. So they made the sacrifice to prevent only these eight people! This abysmally low number of eight applications, of which only two turned up for interview, is a bit surprising for us also," he added.

Sarma also said anyone coming to Assam in 2015 or later will be deported back to their country of origin.

According to the Assam Accord, names of all foreigners coming to the state on or after March 25, 1971 would be detected and deleted from the electoral rolls and steps would be taken to deport them.

The final NRC was released on August 31, 2019 by excluding 19,06,657 people. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

On people facing issues due to blocking of Aadhaar cards, Sarma said around nine lakh cards have been blocked as they had applied during update work of NRC.

"At that time, the government had transformed the Aadhaar centres to NRC centres. These people had gone there to get Aadhaar, but it was blocked due to a clash of timing only. We are examining the list now," he added.

The CM said after the assessment, the state government will actively take up the issue with the Centre.