West Bengal minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury on Wednesday said that the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission has denied him a visa to visit the country, The Indian Express reported. Chowdhury, who is also West Bengal president of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind outfit, was scheduled to visit Bangladesh from December 26 to December 31.

“Now, I have learnt the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission has denied me a visa,” Chowdhury said. “It is very unfortunate as both countries share a good relation. I will take up this matter with the chief minister [Mamata Banerjee].”

“I had applied for visa on December 12-13 for the five-day trip,” Chowdhury had told PTI earlier in the day. “I was invited to address a programme there, and had personal commitments, too. But I am yet to receive my visa. They have neither said my visa application is accepted nor have they officially denied it. I have all the required documents and necessary permission both from the state and central governments.”

Chowdhury, who is the West Bengal minister for library service, said that he will cancel his ticket for Bangladesh on Thursday. Meanwhile, the news agency said Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner Toufique Hasan could not be contacted for comments on the matter.

Though some reports linked it to the ongoing protests against the amended Citizenship Act, it is not known whether Chowdhury’s failure to obtain a visa is the result of Bangladesh being upset with India over the matter.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen had cancelled his visit to India earlier this month, amid protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act. On December 21, Momen said the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens are India’s “internal issues”, but expressed concern that any uncertainty in India was likely to affect its neighbouring countries.

On December 10, Momen had told Dhaka Tribune that Indian politicians’ comments about persecution and torture of Hindus in Bangladesh were “unwarranted as well as untrue”.

A senior advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said last week that the country will take back undocumented Bangladeshi Muslim migrants in India if New Delhi provides evidence. “We will take back any Bangladeshi citizen staying in India illegally,” Gauhar Rizvi said last week. “But India has to prove that.”

Chowdhury had on December 22 threatened to stop Union Home Minister Amit Shah from stepping out of Kolkata airport, whenever he visits the city, if the Citizenship Amendment Act was not repealed immediately. “We may gather one lakh people there to stop him unless the CAA is withdrawn,” he had said.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament on December 11, grants citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis and Sikhs from the Muslim-majority nations of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, provided they have resided in India for six years. The cut-off date is December 31, 2014. However, Muslims are not included in the Act, leading it to be labelled anti-Muslim.

The National Register of Citizens, on the other hand, is an exercise meant to differentiate between undocumented migrants living in India and genuine Indian citizens.