CAA to be implemented as soon as Covid vaccination ends: Home Minister

New Delhi: Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the upcoming Assembly elections in Bengal will be a contest between Narendra Modi’s “development model” and her “destruction model” of governance.
In Bengal, where the BJP has launched a political blitzkrieg against the Mamata Banerjee government, he raked up the issue of the TMC supremo’s opposition to the CAA, and asserted the contentious citizenship law will be enforced once the process of Covid vaccination has ended.
Shah’s whirlwind tour of the state and Assam was also marked by a social outreach to the Koch Ragbongshi and Matua communities whose concerns he sought to assuage. He claimed large-scale infiltration into Coochbehar district, which shares border with Bangladesh, has caused significant changes to its demography.
The polls, he said, will be a fight between the “Vikas (development) model of the Narendra Modi government and Mamata Banerjee’s Vinash (destruction) model”. The home minister, who flagged off the fourth of the five ‘Parivartan Yatra’ of the BJP in Coochbehar, said the campaign is not for changing a chief minister, MLA or minister but ending infiltration and transforming West Bengal’s condition.
Addressing a rally in the north Bengal town, he said the yatra is also aimed at ending corruption patronised by “Bua-Bhatija” combine. The BJP has been accusing Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek, the Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour, of “institutionalising corruption”.
“This ‘Parivartan Yatra’ is not for changing a CM, MLA or a minister. It is for ending infiltration, it is for ending violence and building ‘Sonar Bangla’, it’s for the transformation of Bengal.
“You vote the BJP to power in Bengal. Leave alone illegal immigrants, not even a bird from across the border will be allowed to enter the state,” Shah said.
Addressing another rally in Thakurnagar, a stronghold of the Matua community, Shah said the process of granting Indian citizenship to refugees under the CAA, including to the Matua community, will begin once the process of COVID vaccination has ended.
Accusing the opposition parties of misleading the minorities about the Citizenship (amendment) Act, he said, its implementation will not impact the citizenship status of Indian minorities.
He said the Modi government had in 2018 promised it will bring in a new citizenship law and kept it when the BJP was voted to power again in 2019. Shah said, after the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, its implementation had to be kept in abeyance.
“Mamata didi said we made a false promise. She started opposing the CAA and saying she will never allow it. The BJP always fulfils the promises it makes. We have brought this law and refugees will get citizenship. As soon as the Covid vaccination process ends the process of granting citizenship under CAA will begin. All of you will be respected citizens of this country,” he said.
Matuas, originally from East Pakistan, are weaker section Hindus who migrated to India during the Partition and after the creation of Bangladesh. Many of them have been accorded Indian citizenship but a sizeable section of the population has not got it.
The Matua community, with an estimated population of three million in the state, can tilt the scales in favour of a political party in at least four Lok Sabha seats and more than 30 assembly seats in Nadia, and North and South 24 Parganas districts. It once stood solidly behind the TMC but had supported the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Asked if talks were held on the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Roy said no such matter was discussed as the Union home ministry has already declared the Koch- Rajbongshis as “aboriginals”.
“We belong to this land… so how can we be outsiders? Besides, we have been declared aboriginals by the home ministry,” he said.
The Koch-Rajbongshis along with five other communities in Assam has long been demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
“All our pending demands were discussed at the meeting, and now I can only say that good days are ahead for the Koch-Rajbongshi community,” Roy said.