Suvendu Adhikari's promise of CAA citizenship for 2.5 lakh Bengal applicants by December 31 is misleading

The decision is not the state’s

The Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, notified on March 11, 2024, set up two stages. A District Level Committee, headed by a Designated Officer whom the Central Government notifies, verifies the applicant’s documents and administers the oath of allegiance. PRS Legislative Research describes it as headed by the jurisdictional Senior Superintendent or Superintendent of Post. The application then goes to an Empowered Committee, headed by the Director of Census Operations of the state or Union territory, which may grant citizenship after “such inquiry as it considers necessary”.

Both are Centre-run bodies. The chief minister has said sub-divisional officers will hold the hearings. We found no Centre notification that gives them that role, and the claim is not rated. Even then the grant would remain with the Empowered Committee.

The rules set no time limit

The text of the rules contains no deadline for verification, scrutiny or a decision, and no appeal provision. Disposing of an application also does not mean granting it: the Empowered Committee may refuse, and an applicant who does not appear in person can be referred for refusal. A target for “disposal” and a promise of “citizenship to all eligible applicants” are different things, and the chief minister has used both.

The pace needed has no precedent on record

From November 7 to December 31 is 54 days. Clearing 2.5 lakh cases in that time means over 4,600 a day, every day, including holidays. The first CAA certificates were handed over to 14 people on May 15, 2024. By the chief minister’s own count, about 25,000 people had received certificates in Bengal by November 1, 2026, nearly two and a half years later. Neither figure can be tested, because the next section applies.

The Home Ministry has published no count

The Union Home Ministry has not released how many people have applied under the CAA or been granted citizenship. In April 2025 the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, told the Rajya Sabha that “thousands” had been granted citizenship and gave no number. A request under the Right to Information Act for portal data was declined in September 2024, and in July 2025 the ministry told the Central Information Commission the data was “not being maintained as desired”. The only national figure is Home Minister Amit Shah’s remark in May 2024 that more than 25,000 applications had been received.

So the chief minister’s 25,000 and 2.5 lakh are his own, and no official source confirms or contradicts them. A deadline set on numbers the public cannot see is a political promise, not a schedule.