JOIN USCitizen application online portal doesn’t work, withdraw CAA: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury
Pakistani Hindus who came to India to escape religious persecution are returning in frustration after failing to secure Indian citizenship, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The letter was sent to exhibit the ineffectiveness of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), and Chowdhury appealed that the Act is withdrawn in the coming Parliament session.
“A large number of Pakistani Hindus who had come to India from Pakistan in order to escape religious persecution had to return because they were unable to secure Indian citizenship,” Chowdhury stated in the letter.
According to Chowdhury, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had announced twice—once in 2018 and again in 2021—Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, and Buddhists who are minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh—can apply online for citizenship.
Thousands of Hindus came to India from Pakistan and applied but due to the “slow and cumbersome process there is little progress and they have become so frustrated that they are going back to Pakistan,” Chowdhury said.
The Lok Sabha MP and senior Congress leader also claimed that the portal doesn’t accept expired Pakistani passports. This has forced people wanting Indian citizenship to get their passports renewed for hefty sums at the Pakistan High Commission.
In a second letter written to Shah, Chowdhury also appealed that the CAA be withdrawn. “It is more than two years now that you have passed the ill-thought-out (sic) legislation called CAA. But still, you are not able to implement it because of its inherent and manifest unconstitutionality,” Chowdhury wrote.
He also cited that India has been tagged as a “country of particular concern in respect of religious freedom.” Just like the central government withdrew the three farm laws, the Centre must withdraw the CAA legislation as well, in the monsoon session of Parliament, he said.
West Bengal, which shares a porous border with Bangladesh, has had an uphill task to fight the illegal immigration from Bangladesh, along with intermittent onslaughts by insurgents, and dealing with refugees seeking asylum. Because of this, the CAA has now become an important issue in West Bengal politics.
Trinamool Congress, the ruling party in the state, has been vehemently against the CAA. Trinamool national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee, during his visit to Assam, reiterated his party’s stand: “We oppose this draconian Bill (read Act). There are no two ways about it.”
Shah, in a recent Bengal visit, had announced that the CAA will be implemented in the state once the spread of Covid-19 subsides. This had triggered a fresh debate over the legislation.