Union home minister Amit Shah (File photo)

KOLKATA: The framing of rules of the new citizenship law is likely to be in place in April, according to sources in the Bengal unit of BJP which had a meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah in Kolkata on Sunday.

The sources said that Shah has the draft rules ready but would prefer to wait for a month for the feedback of the ongoing public outreach programme by BJP-RSS cadres on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The feedback is particularly important in Bengal, where the refugees are waiting for CAA rules to get certain things clarified.

For instance, questions are being raised whether families of refugees who came to Bengal from the erstwhile East Pakistan during the early years after Partition will have to again apply for citizenship under CAA. “My father came from East Pakistan and settled in Kolkata in 1952. He died in 2005. I was born in Kolkata in 1960. Should I apply for citizenship under the CAA?” said central government employee Aparup Mukherjee from Beliaghata.

CAA applies to the persecuted non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India on or before January 31, 2014. “But CAA isn’t clear about the early cut-off date. Here is the confusion. Going by CAA, all refugees need to apply when the government of India had announced that those who came to India before 25 March, 1971 are citizens,” high court lawyer Moloy Das said.

According to Das, under the prevailing law, those born in India between 1950 and July 1, 1987 are citizens by birth irrespective of whether their parents came from East Pakistan. “People born after July 1, 1987 have to prove that one of the parents is an Indian citizen,” Das said.

The existing rules are, however, tough for those born after December 30, 2004. These teens have to substantiate that they were born of parents who are both Indian citizens, Das added. The Vajpayee government brought this change during the NDA regime in 2003-04.

State BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu admitted that there is confusion over the new law. “People are asking us what they should do to apply for citizenship. They want to know if they have to wait in queues for making the application. We are telling them that a self-declaration mentioning the date of entry into India and the place from where they came will suffice. They can make online application also. The other questions will be clear when the CAA rules are published,” he said.

The BJP leader held that there is a strong undercurrent in support of CAA in Bengal. “A refugee migrating to India from Bangladesh after doing his graduation in Rajshahi University of Bangladesh can’t apply for a government job in India. He can apply for the job once he gets citizenship under CAA,” the BJP general secretary said.

