Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov 1: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has published an order granting citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who reside in the Gujarati districts of Anand and Mehsana and who are originally from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, according to the Citizenship Act of 1955.
The district collectors in Gujarat have been given the authority to award citizenship.
Notably, the decision to issue citizenship in accordance with the thorny Citizenship Act of 1955 rather than the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA) is significant.
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who are citizens of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan may also obtain Indian citizenship under the CAA. However, no one has been given citizenship under the Act thus far because the government has not yet established the regulations that would regulate it.
Even in 2016, 2018, and 2021, the MHA gave district collectors the authority to issue citizenship certificates to immigrants from the six communities who entered India with valid documentation in a number of districts in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab.
