KATHMANDU, AUGUST 25
Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand has urged the public not to be misled by rumours on the citizenship bill.
The bill is under the National Assembly's consideration after the House of Representatives passed it without any changes after it was returned to the HoR by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari for reconsideration.
Interacting with journalists here today, Khand said the main objective of the bill was to grant citizenship to children of citizens by birth who had not been able to obtain citizenship for the past seven years due to non-enactment of the new federal citizenship law. He said eligible citizens were being rendered stateless due to non-enactment of the new federal citizenship law.
Khand stated in a press release issued during the interaction with journalists that if the bill could not be enacted into law, lakhs of eligible citizens, including non-resident Nepalis whose citizenship rights were ensured by the constitution, would be deprived of their rights, opportunities, and benefits.
The minister said there was no waiting period provision for matrimonial naturalisation in the citizenship bill and citizenship ordinance brought by the KP Sharma Oli government, but rumours were being spread that not having a waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation in the current citizenship bill would imperil nationalism. "People should be free from delusion that not having a waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation in the citizenship bill will imperil nationalism," Khand stated in the release.
He said the bill contained the same provisions related to matrimonial naturalisation as were contained in the Citizenship Act-2006, which was enacted on the basis of consensus between the seven mainstream parties and the erstwhile CPN-Maoist. When the Citizenship Act-2006 was enacted into law, UML Chair KP Sharma Oli was the deputy prime minister and foreign minister and Bidhya Devi Bhandari a lawmaker.
The minister said there was no new provision in the bill related to matrimonial naturlisation, but propaganda was being spread that the bill would harm nationalism. He said all the laws and the constitution enacted after 1952 provisioned for granting matrimonial naturalisation after foreign women marrying Nepali citizens renounced the citizenship of their mother countries. Khand said even the citizenship ordinance issued by the KP Sharma Oli government last year did not make any change to the provision related to matrimonial naturalisation. The legal provision related to matrimonial naturalisation has remained the same for the past 70 years, he added.
Khand said since Article 289 had already curtailed rights of naturalised citizens, having a waiting period for matrimonial naturalisation made no sense.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 26, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
