The Union Home Ministry is toying with a new formula on CAB in a bid to diffuse tension in the Northeast over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.
According to MHA sources, the Centre is drafting a proposal to incentivize the Hindu Bangladeshis to settle anywhere in the country, barring the states of the region.
A senior Home Ministry official told media at New Delhi last night that the MHA was considering a proposal to provide incentives to those people who want to settle anywhere in India, except the Northeast as according to them the number of such application should not be more than 200.
In that process, the MHA made it clear that CAB was aimed at those who had already came in and settled in Assam illegally and that number would be around 8-10 lakhs.
"There cannot be too many Bangladeshis applying for the Indian nationality under the proposed new law. Otherwise, they would have already taken the long-term visas (LTVs) for which the criteria are the same. So far just 197 people had taken the long term visas" the official said.
The MHA however cleverly played down the main move the CAB, which was to change the definition of illegal infiltrators, making anyone to enter India and prove before a district Magistrate that he or she is a Hindu and left Bangladesh for religious persecution.
