PUTRAJAYA, Oct 25 — Two hundred people received their Malaysian citizenship papers from Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin at the National Registration Department (NRD) here today.

The awards ceremony showed the ruling Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) fulfilment of one of its GE14 manifesto pledges, in a bid to improve the socio-economic status of the country’s 32 million population.

"Malaysian citizenship status is the nation’s highest award and is only accorded to those who are really deserving,” Muhyiddin said in his speech during the ceremony.

He advised the new citizens to master Bahasa Melayu as it is the key to national unity.

He said priority for citizenship was given to Malaysia-born ethnic Indians above age 60 this time around as promised in PH’s election manifesto, adding that his ministry approved 1,641 applications out of 3,853 received from the demographic group.