Explain why over 600 Indians giving up citizenship daily: Congress asks govt

New Delhi: Alleging that the average number of Indians giving up their citizenship per day has grown 1.7 times in the last eight years, the Congress on Tuesday said the number of people renouncing Indian citizenship has risen considerably during the Amrit Kaal as it rose from a daily average of 354 in 2014 to 448 in 2021 and 604 in 2022.

Blaming the BJP government for the huge exodus of Indians, the Congress said it has happened due to the government’s “failure” in providing jobs and growth opportunities among others for the exodus. The migration of Indians to foreign destinations was highest in 2022 compared to previous years.

While addressing a press conference, party spokesperson Prof Gourav Vallabh said people have realised that ‘Ache Din’ (good days) will come for Indians only when they settle abroad during the Modi regime and that is why they are leaving this country after renouncing their citizenship.

Citing the data of the Ministry of External Affairs, he alleged that the first 10 months of 2022 (January to October) saw the highest number of such cases, as compared to 2014; 129,328 gave up citizenship at the rate of 354 persons per day while in 2021, the total number was 163,370 or 448 persons per day and in 2022, it was 183,741 (up to October 31, 2022) or 604 persons per day.

“Of people giving up Indian citizenship, most of them are those with high net worth. For 2022, around 7,000 people will have an annual income of Rs 8 crore. From hunger to happiness, if our global rankings are falling/consistently low, this is bound to happen,” Vallabh said. The Congress also asked the government to reveal reasons for the rising numbers of those giving up their citizenship.

Vallabh, an economist, also flagged the consistent high unemployment rate as one of the reasons for the rise in migration of Indians to other countries having higher job potential. “As per CMIE, the unemployment rate was more than 7 per cent for eight months and more than 8 per cent for the remaining. For December 2022, it was 8.3 percent overall and 10.09 per cent for urban India,” he said. Vallabh further pointed out that the other reason for the rise in migration is the low GDP growth opportunities. “Due to twin shocks of demonetisation and flawed implementation of GST, GDP growth fell from 8.3 per cent in FY 2017 to 3.7 per cent in FY 2020, and after the 2020 lockdown, GDP further fell to (-) 6.7 per cent in FY 2021. For FY 2022, GDP growth rate was 8.7 per cent, but there is nothing to celebrate in this due to the low base for FY 2021,” he added.