CAA will be implemented after Covid booster dose drive is over: Shah  

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah brought up the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) issue on Tuesday saying it will be implemented once the precautionary dose drive against coronavirus is over, according to an Indian Express report.

According to an Indian Express report, Shah told Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal, that the contentious CAA will be implemented. Adhikari had met him in Parliament House to take up the matters related to the functioning of the BJP in the state as well as the organisational issues.

Adhikari tweeted after meeting Shah, “It is an honour for me to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah for 45 minutes at his office in Parliament. I briefed him how WB Govt is completely mired in corrupt activities such as the teachers recruitment scam. Also requested him to implement CAA at the earliest.”

According to news agency PIT, Adhikari told reporters that the issue of CAA, slammed by critics for its alleged anti-Muslim bias, implementation is very critical for West Bengal where a large number of people who can benefit from its provisions. However, there is a view that the government is treading cautiously on the matter after the Act drew protests in different parts of the country, the agency underlined. Besides, several countries criticised India for the citizenship regime. Further, the country also faced sharp criticism from bodies such as the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on the citizenship law and the violence in New Delhi that claimed more than 40 lives.

Hundreds of protest demonstrations were held across the country when the ACT was passed in 2019 with rights bodies and Muslim organizations raising serious fear of unrest and chaos once the discriminatory Act was implemented. The mothership of the movement was in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh where Muslim women had held a sit-in for three months. A number of non-Muslims had also joined the stir.

Various constitutional experts had then demanded the Narendra Modi government for the rollback of the Act saying that it “contradicts the secular constitution”.

Earlier, on several occasions, Shah had stated that the CAA would be implemented. The contentious citizenship regime seeks to give citizenship to illegal Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, and got notified the next day. However, the government has not yet framed rules for the Act. – INDIA NEWS STREAM