Congress wants clear assurance from government on NPR

The Congress on Thursday asked the Modi government to come clean on the National Population Register, accusing it of indulging in “double-speak” and trying to create confusion over dropping of certain contentious questions in the enumeration exercise.

“The politics of digression and diversion is going on,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said here when asked to comment on Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan's comments that the government would amend the questionnaire for the NPR updation exercise and drop contentious queries.

Another union minister Prakash Javadekar had argued that questions related to date and place of birth of parents in the NPR exercise were optional and should be considered “dropped” if a person chose not to answer the same.

“Why can no one in the government say that there would be no nationwide NRC and NPR exercise would be carried out on the basis of the format finalised by the UPA government,” Singhvi said.

He said even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were avoiding a direct answer and commenting on the issue with certain caveats.

Singhvi pointed out that the Prime Minister had clearly said that NRC was not discussed in Parliament or meetings of the Union Cabinet.

He said there was a sense of fear among the people over the Citizenship Amendment Act, NPR and NRC which was seen as one complete package.

“Further, the home minister asserts that come what may, the government will implement CAA and remain adamant on it... you get a cocktail of distrust and of suspicion,” Singhvi said.

Singhvi said the trust deficit in the country is humongous and the politics of digression and diversion is going on and one can see desperation all around when these things happen.

Remarks by Paswan on dropping of certain questions from the NPR exercise was seen as a climbdown by the government on the NPR issue.