Guwahati: Two applicants in Assam have been granted citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary informed the State Assembly on Monday (March 10, 2025).
He was speaking on behalf of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who holds the Home portfolio.
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The controversial CAA, enacted in 2019 and implemented in 2024, provides a fast-track process for granting citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014. According to data from the Directorate of Census Operations, Assam received 39 applications under the CAA.
Of these, two applicants were granted citizenship, while the applications of 18 others are still under review. The remaining 19 applications were closed, although the applicants can reapply for citizenship, Patowary explained in response to a question from Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha, the representative from Karimganj North.
Regarding illegal immigration, Chief Minister Sarma reported that 156 Bangladeshi nationals were caught entering Assam illegally between 2021 and 2024.
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The number of such individuals rose from 51 in 2021 to 57 in 2022, before decreasing to 22 in 2023, and then increasing to 26 in 2024 amid political turmoil in Bangladesh.
The CAA has faced opposition in Assam, with critics arguing that it could bring in Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh and undermine the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which aims to identify illegal immigrants in the state.
The NRC, updated with a cut-off date of March 24, 1971, as per the Assam Accord of 1985, excluded 19.06 lakh individuals from the 3.3 crore applicants in the complete draft published in August 2019.