Amid Nationwide Protests against Citizenship Act, PMO's Office Says Modi is Indian by Birth, has no Certificate

New Delhi, March 1, 2020:

Amid the ongoing nationwide protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Subhankar Sarkar, an activist filed an RTI on January 17, 2020 asking to be shown the citizenship certificate of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Modi has no citizenship certificate, he’s Indian by birth: Prime Ministers's Office"

In response to the RTI, the Under Secretary of the PMO Praveen Kumar wrote: “Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is a citizen of India by birth in terms of Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and as such the question of his having a citizenship certificate which is for citizenship by registration does not arise.”

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This claims comes amid the BJP-led Centre's implementation of "citizenship" laws such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the publication of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, that seeks to weed out "foreigners" from the Northeast Indian state that shares a long international border with Bangladesh, a majority-Muslim country.

Again, the Government last December amended the Citizenship Act which sparked a massive unrest in the Northeast Indian region. Later, the protests spread to all corners in India, and took the form of violent riots in Delhi, where no less than 40 people succumbed to death.

So, while 19 million are struggling to prove their citizenship in Assam, and citizens across the country are protesting the Government's move to fasttrack "citizenship" to non-Muslims from the neighboring Muslim-majority countries, the PM has been proclaimed as a legal citizen by dint of being born on Indian soil. But the question is, whether such claims by an ordinary citizen will be accepted?

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