About 1,032 Hindu refugees from Pakistan will get to cast their votes in the next Assembly polls to choose who should lead Gujarat, according to a TOI report. The state collectors have awarded citizenships to these refugees in the last five years and they will cast votes for the first time in the upcoming Assembly elections.
These members of the Hindu community were given asylum in India due to persecution in Pakistan, the report said. The process to provide them with Indian citizenship has been under way since 2016.
The 2016 and 2018 gazettes showed that the collectors of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bhuj, who had the authority to grant citizenship to minority communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, had awarded that to more than a thousand Hindu refugees after approval from central and state intelligence agencies.
Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghvi also distributed Indian citizenship certificates to 40 Hindu refugees from Pakistan on Aug. 22 this year at the Ahmedabad collector’s office.
Dilip Maheshwari, one of the refugees who spoke to TOI, said that he had been trying to get Indian citizenship since 1995. Maheshwari, born in Tharparkar's Mithi town in Pakistan, was one of the 212 people who were given Indian citizenship in 2021. His partner Maya also received her citizenship this year.
Maheshwari has voted multiple times in Pakistan and is now excited to be able to vote for the first time in India, the report said.