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Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday announced that the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be implemented as soon as the vaccination for coronavirus is completed. Speaking

at a public meeting Thakurnagar, West Bengal, Shah said, “At this holy land I vow that as soon as the COVID-19 vaccination drive ends, as soon as we get rid of COVID-19, all you people

[Mathua community people] would be given citizenship.”

Amit Shah is campaigning in poll-bound West Bengal state. The BJP is campaigning under the slogan of “Poriborthan” (change) in the state. Matuas are a small Hindu community who had migrated

from Pakistan and Bangladesh during the India-Pakistan partition and after the creation of Bangladesh. The members of the community are yet to be accorded with Indian citizenship.

Challenging Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said that she cannot stop the CAA. “This is a national law. How can you stop it? Anyway you won’t even be in a situation to stop it because

after April you won’t be a Chief Minister,” Amit Shah said.

The Union Minister added, “This is the BJP government, we won’t allow infiltrators to trespass. We honour the refugees, grant them citizenship and embrace them.” Shah said that the Congress,

Communists and Trinamool Congress are trying to create fear amongst the minority community by saying that their citizenship will be lost. “I want to tell the Muslim brothers and sisters

that CAA doesn’t have any provision to strip away anybody’s citizenship. It has a provision to grant citizenship. They are trying to fool the people. As a Union Minister I want to tell from

this holy land that there is no possibility of any single Muslim losing citizenship through CAA.”

Claiming that the Mathua community had voted en masse to the BJP in 2019, Shah said, “In 2018, we had promised to give citizenship to the Matua community by amending the citizenship law if

the Modi-government was reelected to power. And in 2019, the Matua community people had filled our bags with lotus flowers. The Modi government was formed. We did not even delay it for a

bit. By 2020 we brought CAA and the law was created.”

While CAA does not deprive anyone of citizenship as stated by the Union Home Minister, considered together with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has created a fear amongst the

Muslims. The CAA grants Indian citizenship to "illegal" migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians (except non-Muslims) from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh

who reached India before 2015. However, the "chronology" of implementing it creates a problem for the Muslim community. As per the government, they would first implement NRC to find out who

are the eligible citizens. In the drive, the non-Muslims lacking documents can be granted citizenship under CAA, while the Muslim community members would be left out.