CPN-UML lawmakers have registered amendment proposal to keep a provision in the new citizenship bill that requires foreigners marrying Nepali citizens to wait for seven years to get naturalized citizenship.
UML lawmakers including Bhim Rawal, Krishna Bhakta Pokharel, Surya Pathak, Shanti Maya Pakhrin and others have registered amendment proposal that requires foreigners marrying Nepali citizens to wait for seven years to get naturalized citizenship as was kept in report prepared by the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the House of Representatives (HoR).
The current government has already withdrawn the Citizenship Bill 2075. The withdrawn bill was registered in the HoR on August 7, 2018. It was discussed in the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee of the HoR, and the report subsequently submitted to the HoR on June 23, 2020 included the provision that requires foreigners marrying Nepali citizens to wait for seven years to get naturalized citizenship.
The new bill presented in the House does not propose any restrictions on foreigners marrying Nepali citizens while acquiring naturalized citizenship.
A total of 50 lawmakers mostly from UML have registered 29 amendment proposals in the new bill, according to the Federal Parliament Secretariat. No Nepali Congress (NC) lawmaker has registered amendment proposal.
The amendment proposals propose to provide permanent residency and all kinds of social and cultural rights apart from political rights for seven years.
The proposals registered by Pokharel, Pakhrin, Binda Pandey and others also propose that gender identity should be revealed while issuing citizenship certificate.
