Panaji

The issue of Portuguese citizenship was raging in 2013-14 in Goa when Manohar Parrikar was the chief minister, especially at a time when some politicians were accused of having dual citizenship and facing disqualification.

Before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Parrikar had said that if elected to power, BJP had the capability of coming out with a solution to address the issue of Goans who were faced with trouble for having their births registered in Lisbon. He had also reportedly said that between 40,000 and 50,000 Goans who had their births registered in Lisbon would not lose their Indian citizenship.

In November 2014, he had met the Union home minister Rajnath Singh as the issue of dual citizenship had come to the fore after disqualification petitions had been filed against two MLAs - BJP's Glenn Ticlo (Aldona) and Goa Vikas Party's Caetano Silva (Benaulim).

Parrikar had described the union home ministry's order declaring Caitu Silva a Portuguese national "a fraud". Silva had never travelled to Lisbon and never made an application for registration of his birth there, he had said. Parrikar had also said that if registration of birth in Portugal entitles one to get Portuguese citizenship under their law, the person doesn't lose his Indian citizenship until he voluntarily renounces it.