Union minister of state for home affairs (MoS home) Nityanand Rai informed Parliament on Wednesday that 7,306 Pakistani nationals had filed for citizenship in India till December 14, 2021. According to data released by the Union home ministry, Pakistani nationals made up about 70% of the 10,635 applications for Indian citizenship received until the deadline. Rai was responding to a request from MP Abdul Wahab for information on current Indian citizenship aspirants, including their current citizenship information.

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Other countries, including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the United States, Nepal, and Bangladesh, have applied for Indian citizenship, according to the MoS. According to him, 1,152 Afghan applications are pending, 428 Stateless applications are pending, 223 US and Sri Lanka applications are pending, and 189 and 161 Nepal and Bangladesh applications are pending, respectively. According to the ministry, there are up to ten applications pending from China. 

K Keshava Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the Rajya Sabha requested to know the total number of applications India received from Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Afghan minority groups (Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jain, and Buddhist) between 2018 and 2021. He also inquired as to how many Indians had been granted citizenship.

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Between 2018 and 2021, the Centre received 8,244 petitions for Indian citizenship from minority groups in these neighbouring countries, and granted citizenship to 3,117 of them, according to Rai. 

Rai informed the Lok Sabha earlier this month that over 8.5 lakh Indian citizens had abandoned their citizenship in the seven years leading up to September 30, 2021. He went on to say that until September 20th, 1,11,287 people have given up their Indian citizenship. 

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The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre in 2019, and it took effect on January 10, 2020. People from minority groups, as well as those from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, can petition for Indian citizenship under the Act. The Centre is yet to issue rules under the CAA and has requested a deadline of January 2022 to do so.