Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stated at a gathering to celebrate the completion of his government’s first-anniversary commemoration that his government will not execute the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). “The government has a clear position on the Citizenship Amendment Act,” Kerala CM stated, criticizing the CAA for undermining the country’s secularism.
No one in Kerala, according to the chief minister, has the authority to ‘discern nationality based on religion’. “The state government has a clear position on this matter. There will be no change in it,” he said.
Advocating for ‘secularism’, CM Pinarayi Vijayan said, “our country works on the principle of secularism as mentioned in the Constitution of India. Nowadays, attempts are being made to destroy secularism. A certain group of people are greatly concerned about this. In a recent incident, a group of people were determining citizenship on the basis of religion. Kerala government has taken a firm stand against this incident.”
He further stated that surveys are being undertaken in various regions of the country in order to instil communal animosity amongst people. “Several surveys are being conducted in different parts of the country to create communal tension among people. But here, a survey has been completed to identify the most impoverished families in our society. Further steps will be taken as part of this survey,” CM Pinarayi Vijayan said.
The Citizenship Amendment Act
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was notified on December 12, 2019, after President Ram Nath Kovind approved the Legislation. It became effective on January 10, 2020. Persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, including Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi, and Christian populations, would be entitled to get citizenship in India under the CAA.
CAA applies to those who came to India before December 31, 2014, as a result of religious persecution in the aforementioned countries. They would be considered illegal immigrants, and the government would offer them Indian citizenship in accordance with the law’s provisions. According to the legislation, if a person of the specified religion from one of the three nations on the list does not have evidence of their parents’ birth, they may request citizenship after six years of stay in India.
The Ministry of Home Affairs required six months to draft the rules for the Citizen (Amendment) Act, 2019, as per an answer to a question in the Parliament on July 26, 2021. Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated last month in Siliguri, West Bengal, that the law will be executed after the COVID-19 epidemic was over.
