No nationwide NRC plan yet, MHA says in House
NEW DELHI: The government said in Parliament on Tuesday that no decision has been taken as of now to prepare a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC). This is the first time such an admission has been made in Parliament and it comes against the backdrop of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, and the proposed NRC.
It also claimed that when data for National Population Register (NPR) is collected between April and September, no documents will be sought nor any verification be carried out to identify individuals whose citizenship is in doubt.
Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha: “Till now, the government has not taken any decision to prepare the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) at the national level.”
Some of the protests against the CAA, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014, arise from fears that the act will used in tandem with the proposed NRC.
A similar exercise in Assam last year excluded 1.9 million people, both Hindus and Muslims. Subsequently, in the run-up to the 2019 elections, several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including current home minister
Amit Shah, said the NRC would be implemented in tandem with CAA. After the elections, President Ram Nath Kovind too, on June 20, 2019, said the Narendra Modi government had decided to implement the process of NRC on a “priority basis”. Kovind had said illegal infiltrators posed a major threat to India’s internal security and this was leading to social imbalance in many parts of the country as well as putting huge pressure on limited livelihood opportunities. However, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the home ministry said in December that there is no plan for a nationwide NRC.
Several opposition parties had given notices in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seeking a debate and also answers on CAA, NRC and the NPR on Monday.