Two applicants in Assam have been granted citizenship via the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA so far, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary told the 126-member State Assembly on Monday (March 10, 2025).
He stood in for Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who holds the Home portfolio.
Enacted in 2019, the controversial CAA was implemented in 2024. The law offers a special window for fast-track citizenship to non-Muslims who migrated from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan on or before December 31, 2014.
Citing data received from the Directorate of Census Operations, the Chief Minister said applications under the CAA were received from 39 people living in Assam.
“While two of these applicants were granted citizenship, the applications of 18 others are under examination. The remaining 19 applications were ‘closed’ but the applicants can apply for citizenship again,” Mr. Patowary said in reply to a question from Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha, who represents the Karimganj North constituency.
Illegal entry
The Chief Minister also said 156 Bangladeshi nationals were caught entering Assam illegally between 2021 and 2024. The number of such people increased from 51 in 2021 to 57 the following year before dipping to 22 in 2023 and increasing again to 26 in 2024, marked by a political upheaval in Bangladesh.
The CAA met with opposition in Assam with protesters claiming it was a bid by the Bharatiya Janata Party to bring in people from Bangladesh, primarily Bengali Hindus, apart from defeating the purpose of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was updated with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for weeding out non-citizens.
This date is prescribed in the Assam Accord of August 1985, which ended a violent six-year agitation seeking the ejection of “illegal immigrants” in the State.
The NRC of 1951 was updated in Assam under the Supreme Court’s supervision. Some 19.06 lakh of the 3.3 crore applicants were left out of the complete draft of the NRC published in August 2019.
