The Delhi Congress on Sunday said that if voted to power in the city, it will not implement the National Population Register (NPR), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) in its present form. This will also be the key highlight of the party’s manifesto in the upcoming elections, it said.
Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken said that the party’s manifesto committee held its first meeting on Sunday in which the decision was taken unanimously.
Maken said the current NPR exercise is different from the one conducted in 2010, when the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre. “The NPR of 2020 is different from the one carried out in 2010. The BJP wants to bring NRC in the guise of NPR. We will not let this happen if we form government in Delhi,” he said.
The BJP lashed out at the announcement, saying the Congress leadership is spreading fake news. “Congress leadership is behaving irresponsibly. How can they speak about the bill (NPR) which has not yet been tabled? They have not read it and have not seen the bill so why lie about it,” said Manoj Tiwar, Delhi BJP chief.
Asked if the Delhi government has the right to not implement the three processes, which are controlled by the Centre, Maken said that NPR can be controlled by the state government as it is carried out by state employees.
“The NPR is an exercise to assess the population by doing a housing survey, which is carried out by state government employees such as teachers. Its questionnaire does not pertain to citizenship. The BJP has included six new questions in the NPR, which are linked to NRC. The Delhi government is well within its rights to not include those questions and just stick to population census,” said Maken.
Delhi Congress chief Subash Chopra alleged that the ruling BJP is doing all this to divert people’s attention from pressing issues like economic distress, price rise and unemployment.
The party also demanded that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal convene a special Assembly session to clear his stand on the CAA, NRC and NPR as well as the police crackdown on students of Jamia Millia Islamia, who were protesting against the new law.
