Around 19,000 Granted Citizenship Under CAA in West Bengal

MP, June 5, 2026, Kolkata : Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that around 19,000 of the 1.2 lakh applicants under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Bengal have received citizenship certificates.

The Chief Minister also announced that applicants whose citizenship requests are still pending would also be eligible for benefits under the state government’s Annapurna Yojana.

The CAA, implemented in Bengal from March 2024, offers a path to Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.

The development comes amid the state government’s ongoing “detect, delete and deport” drive against undocumented migrants.

The Act has assumed particular significance for large sections of Hindu refugees, especially Namashudras, who migrated from Bangladesh in the aftermath of the 1971 Liberation War.

Officials said those who do not qualify under the CAA framework are being treated as illegal infiltrators.

Several detainees have already been handed over to the Border Security Force for repatriation.

In Bagda assembly constituency in North 24 Parganas, where nearly 15,000 names were recently deleted from the electoral roll — the highest figure in the district — 13 Matua refugee families from Matua have already received citizenship certificates after applying around seven months ago.

The previous Trinamool Congress government had opposed the implementation of the CAA.

Millennium Post