Latvia Revokes a Special-Law Citizenship Grant Within One Week

Within one week, Latvia’s Saeima annulled the citizenship granted to Indian scientist Divya Kannan Vishwanath through a special law, reversing an approval made on October 15.

The vote on Thursday declared the previous law invalid from the date of its adoption, according to BNN. The original legislation recognised Vishwanath as a Latvian citizen for her contribution to science, pharmacy, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Grant invalidated from date of adoption

New Unity, which submitted the amendment, said doubts had emerged about the completeness of the information used by parliament when it approved the grant. The National Alliance also submitted a proposal to reverse the decision.

Before the vote, the Saeima’s Legal Affairs Committee identified technical shortcomings in the original draft. MPs therefore adopted an alternative bill prepared by the committee, making the repeal retroactive rather than simply removing the original grant prospectively.

Completeness and procedure drove the reversal

Public doubts about Vishwanath’s qualifications and the basis for the grant followed the original approval.

Edmunds Jurēvics, leader of the New Unity faction, told the chamber that mistakes had to be acknowledged and corrected. He apologised for the previous decision and said citizenship should not be treated as a gift. Artūrs Butāns, deputy leader of the National Alliance faction, said his party had not supported the original grant and questioned both Vishwanath’s motivation and the use of a separate law instead of naturalisation.

Gunārs Kūtris, head of the Citizenship, Migration and Social Cohesion Committee, opposed the repeal. He described it as a decision based on rumours and said the committee had no facts showing that Vishwanath’s academic record was false.

"The granting of citizenship should be assessed with the utmost care." — Edgars Rinkēvičs, President of Latvia

Academy support came under scrutiny

The Latvian Academy of Sciences had sent the Saeima a letter recommending citizenship for Vishwanath (LSM). The Saeima must also establish whether the academy may have misled parliament when it supported her application.

The original explanatory memorandum described Vishwanath as holding a doctorate in computer science and working in information and communication technologies, data science, artificial intelligence and pharmaceutical research. It said her professional activities had been connected with the Latvian Academy of Sciences since 2019. Since 2024, she had headed the artificial-intelligence laboratory at SIA Dr. Vishys.

According to information published by Firmas.lv and cited by BNN, the microenterprise Dr. Vishys is owned by Kannan Vishwanath, who received Latvian citizenship in autumn 2023 with academy support. The company had operated without turnover in recent years while accumulating losses exceeding 200,000 euros.

The parliamentary Citizenship, Migration and Social Cohesion Committee found that the responsible authorities held no information about circumstances preventing Vishwanath from obtaining citizenship under the Citizenship Law. The Union of Greens and Farmers maintained that the original decision was sufficiently justified. It said opinions from 11 state institutions had been assessed across three committee meetings, with no new facts indicating that she failed to meet the requirements.

The National Alliance also proposed releasing the recording and transcript of the committee’s closed session on October 14. On October 23, the Saeima referred that proposal to the responsible committee.

President urges exclusive citizenship decisions

Rinkēvičs proposed that people receiving exceptional citizenship should partially meet the requirements of the normal naturalisation route. He said they should have some Latvian-language knowledge, have lived in Latvia for a specified number of years and have long-term goals important to Latvia.

For readers tracking other programme changes, our separate report on Greece’s golden-visa revocations provides a programme-level comparison.

On October 23, Rinkēvičs said he hoped the next Saeima would end the practice of deciding individual citizenship grants as a matter of urgency.

Sources

• Saeima changes its mind about Latvian citizenship for Indian scientist — eng.lsm.lv, 2026-10-23
• Just one week after approval, Latvian parliament reverses ... — bnn-news.com, 2026-10-22