New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said West Bengal would be the “best performing state” for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in these general elections, his government has begun the process of issuing the first batch of citizenship certificates to Hindu Bangladeshis in the state under the recently notified Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024.Though the Rules were notified this past March 11 by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), its decision to go ahead by rolling out the process on the ground during a keenly contested general election can be called unusual, considering it can bore favourable results to the ruling party.With more and more news circulating about a ‘tight fight’ for the BJP in big states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh in these long-drawn-out parliamentary polls, the ruling party is banking heavily on its electoral performance in West Bengal to be able to return to power for a third straight term.Granting citizenship to the Hindu Bangladeshis residing in the state, so also in neighbouring Tripura and Assam, has been the demand of a large swathe of Bengali voters, particularly by the Matua community, for a while now. The BJP, since 2014, has been wooing such voters not just in Bengal but in Tripura and Assam too, with Narendra Modi himself promising its fulfilment in several election rallies.Though the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was turned into law in 2019 by the Modi government, rules to grant citizenship under it were not made by the MHA for a long while – leading a considerable size of Bengali voters in West Bengal, and other pockets in eastern and north-eastern states, expressing discontent towards the BJP. The majority of Bengali voters in Tripura and Assam had swerved towards the BJP in the last decade or so based on that promise.This past March 11, the MHA acted on it and notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024. That the move came in the run-up to a crucial general election indicated that the BJP was looking at a better performance in West Bengal and Assam while holding on to all the seats in Tripura in 2024.At least eight seats in West Bengal itself are said to be directly influenced by the implementation of the CAA, and some others indirectly. The BJP had pocketed 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 polls, surprising many poll pundits. On May 28, Modi said in an interview that his party’s best performance would come from Bengal.A day later, the MHA announced in a statement that it has begun issuing the first batch of citizenship certificates in West Bengal, also in Uttarakhand and Haryana where a section of Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan had taken shelter. The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.The MHA statement said, “The process of granting citizenship certificates under the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 has now commenced in the state of West Bengal, where the first set of applications from the State was today granted citizenship by the Empowered Committee, West Bengal. Similarly, the Empowered Committees of the states of Haryana and Uttarakhand have also granted citizenship today to the first set of applicants in their respective States, under the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024.”The Hindu, while pointing out that the Ministry “did not specify the number of people who acquired Indian citizenship through CAA in the three states”, added, quoting sources, “at least eight Hindu Bangladeshis have been granted citizenship in Bengal.”Referring to the state, a Hindustan Times report underlined, “The development comes as the seventh phase of voting for the Lok Sabha elections is set to take place on June 1 in the constituencies of Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin, Kolkata Uttar parliamentary constituencies across West Bengal.”Yet another state where the BJP is witnessing considerable challenges to repeat its stellar performance in 2019 is Rajasthan. In the run-up to the elections, where 25 seats are at stake for the party in that state, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fount of the party, was seen organising camps to help Pakistani Hindus apply for Indian citizenship in the CAA portal.