Suvendu Adhikari promises citizenship to all eligible CAA applicants in Bengal by December 31

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari promised on Friday that every eligible applicant under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act will have a decision on their case by December 31, a little under eight weeks away.

Speaking in Aranghata, Nadia district, while inaugurating a Kali Puja pandal, Adhikari said the previous Trinamool Congress government had failed to help implement the law, leaving thousands of applications pending. “All eligible applications under the CAA will be disposed of by December 31,” he said.

The numbers behind the promise

About 2.5 lakh applications are pending in Nadia and neighbouring North 24 Parganas, both border districts with large numbers of migrants from Bangladesh. The figure is the same one Adhikari gave on Sunday, November 1, at the International Matua Gosai Convention in Thakurnagar, where he also said that only 25,000 people had received citizenship under the law in Bengal so far.

He said district magistrates had been trained through the Home Department. Sub-divisional officers will supervise verification and hold the hearings. At Thakurnagar he had said hearings would be fast-tracked and that eligible Scheduled Caste members who receive citizenship would also be given Scheduled Caste certificates.

What the law covers

Parliament passed the CAA in December 2019 and the Centre notified its rules in March 2024. It offers a route to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.

The issue matters particularly to sections of the Matua community, whose members live in large numbers in Nadia and North 24 Parganas. At Thakurnagar, Adhikari said his government had come to power with the community’s support and announced a ₹50 crore package for its development. He also said the chief ministers of other states had implemented the CAA and that those eligible there had received citizenship.

Other announcements

At Aranghata, Adhikari also accused the previous government of restricting permissions for Durga Puja and immersion processions. He said the state will spend ₹1,000 crore over two years on renovating old maths and temples under a “Tirthakshetra Circuit” scheme. It will cover trust-managed, debottar and public institutions but not private ones.

The Trinamool Congress has not responded in the reports available. How many of the 2.5 lakh will clear verification by the deadline has not been stated.