New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah's junior minister G Kishan Reddy on Friday offered to hold a dialogue "with all stakeholders" before rolling out the Citizenship Amendment Act.
He further said the rules and regulations are not yet drafted and it will take some time before they are issued by the Home Ministry. "Once normalcy is restored, the Centre would be speaking to everyone before drafting the CAA rules," Reddy said.
Incidentally, the government had held no consultations with the Opposition parties to dispel their doubts about the Citizenship Bill, which it had tabled in Parliament all of a sudden and was in a tearing hurry to pass.
Even the drafting of rules won't automatically lead to implementation of the law, since there will be a gazette notification inviting suggestions and objections for 15 or 30 days, before the final rules are gazetted, the officials explained.
Reddy also accused the Opposition of mixing the issues of NRC and the citizenship law to create confusion. He further said the Centre is willing to talk to anyone who does not indulge in violence.
The junior minister also tried to give an impression that the nationwide NRC is being put on the back burner. But this, too, contradicts Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement during a poll rally in Jharkhand that NRC will be implemented not only in West Bengal but also across the country before the 2024 elections with the avowed aim of throwing out all illegal immigrants.
A senior BJP leader said announcements in poll rallies are not decisions but just "jumlas" as explained by Shah himself regarding some of the poll promises made by Prime Minister Modi in 2014.
In the context of the CAA, which has excluded Muslims, the NRC has raised concern that it may be used to target Muslims who fear that the new Citizenship Act will be applied alongside NRC to drive them out of India.
Anyone born in India before 1987 or whose parents were born before 1987 are bona fide Indian citizens according to law and need not worry about their status, either under the Citizenship Amendment Act or NRC, a top government official said on Friday.
In case of Assam, the cut of date for identification of an Indian citizen is 1971.
The home ministry has clarified that no Indian citizen will be unduly harassed or put to inconvenience and asked to prove citizenship by showing documents like birth certificates of parents or grandparents dating back to a period before 1971.
In a series of tweets, a ministry spokesperson said, illiterate citizens not having any documents, will be allowed to produce witnesses or local proofs supported by members of community.
The assurance is supposed to allay misgivings of Muslims, who dread the will be excluded from the National Register of Citizens exercise being undertaken at national-level.
Also, they will not enjoythe security cover of the CAA, if left out of the NRC list, as opposed to other communities which are duly covered.
