Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that the process of giving the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will start before the last phase of the election. While the BJP government is to implement CAA, the act has received massive criticism from the Opposition, which claims that the INDIA bloc will repel CAA in the first session of the Parliament, if it comes to power.

"Applications have started to come in. Scrutiny is happening according to the rules. And I think before the elections, before the last phase, the process of giving citizenship will start," Shah was quoted as saying in an interview with News 18.

In March, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notified the rules under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 regulations on Monday, days ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled.

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Shah also conveyed confidence in the NDA's ability to cross 400 seats in the Lok Sabha elections during the interview with News 18.

"You will see on counting day (June 4, 2024), before 12.30 pm, NDA will cross 400, Modi ji will again become Prime Minister…My party’s team and I have done a detailed analysis. We are moving towards the third phase with well over 100 seats from the first two. I don't see any problem in crossing the target of 400," he said.

Meanwhile, the CAA laws, which were introduced by the Narendra Modi government and approved by Parliament in 2019, seek to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim migrants who have been persecuted and who came to India before December 31, 2014, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians.

Following the passage of the CAA by Parliament in December 2019 and its subsequent Presidential assent, significant protests erupted in various parts of the country.

The assurance of implementing the highly debated CAA was a significant electoral agenda for the BJP during the previous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in West Bengal.

The process of creating the regulations related to the Act has been ongoing since 2020, and the Ministry of Home Affairs has been requesting continuances from the parliamentary committees on a regular basis.