{"id":332,"date":"2020-03-14T14:34:26","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T14:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/?p=332"},"modified":"2020-03-14T14:34:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T14:34:31","slug":"as-delhi-joins-the-list-12-indian-states-uts-now-stand-in-opposition-to-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"As Delhi joins the list, 12 Indian states & UTs now stand in opposition to NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New Delhi:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from four Congress-ruled states \u2013 Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there are two National Democratic Alliance-ruled states as well that have opposed the exercise \u2013 Bihar and Tamil NaduWest Bengal, Kerala, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the other states in opposition to the move. Puducherry is the second UT in this list.\u00a0Some of these states and UTs have expressed fear that NPR is the first step towards the contentious NRC that has been protested nationwide since the amendments to the Citizenship Act in December 2019.These 12 governments want to conduct the NPR exercise according to its 2010, and not the 2020, format.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2020 format<\/a>, applicants are required to give details of date and place of parents\u2019 birth and mother tongue. The other questions that have been added this time include details of applicants\u2019 Aadhaar number, passport number, mobile phone number, voter ID number, and driving license. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NPR, a UPA-era initiative that seeks to identify long-term residents of an area for better welfare delivery,\u00a0is a register of \u201cusual residents\u201d. This is described by the home ministry as individuals who have been residing in an area for at least six months or intend to stay in a particular location for the next six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amit Shah\u2019s conciliation attempts<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his Rajya Sabha speech Thursday, Home Minister Amit Shah sought to address the opposition\u2019s fears that individuals will be targeted by being marked as \u201cdoubtful citizens\u201d.\u00a0While saying that the exercise is not against minorities, Shah clarified that no individual will be categorised as \u201cdoubtful citizens\u201d if the person is unable to provide the required information.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018D-voter category\u2019\u00a0was first introduced in Assam<\/a>\u00a0in 1997 to identify residents with doubtful citizenship credentials. Such individuals are mentioned in the electoral rolls but have a \u2018D\u2019 marked against their name, which means they can\u2019t vote.While the home minister stressed the fact that no individual will be marked doubtful, the Citizenship Rules 2003 \u2014 a legal framework for conducting the exercise \u2014 states that the enumerator carrying out the exercise will mark and write remarks for individuals that he\/she feels are \u201cdoubtful citizens\u201d.\u00a0However, the rules are not clear on the factors that will decide an applicant\u2019s identification as \u201cdoubtful citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

States and UTs in opposition<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With the NPR exercise set to begin next month, along with Census 2021, it may become a tough job for the Narendra Modi government without cooperation from officials of the state governments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day the home minister made attempts to address fears, the Tamil Nadu government, which is led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party\u2019s ally All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), said it will not issue a notification to carry out the NPR exercise as the Centre didn\u2019t respond to a set of queries raised by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This came just weeks after the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, where BJP is part of the ruling coalition, announced that the state\u00a0won\u2019t conduct<\/a>\u00a0the exercise according to the 2020 format.States that had so far maintained a neutral stand have also started moving against it now.\u00a0On 2 March, the Andhra Pradesh government decided to hold off on the NPR implementation. In a couple of tweets, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said some of the questions that are part of the revised 2020 format are \u201ccausing insecurities in the minds of minorities\u201d of Andhra and requested the centre to stick to 2010 format.The move came on the back of a\u00a0similar decision<\/a>\u00a0by the K. Chandrasekhar Rao government in Telangana last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opposition Congress-ruled Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry have already said no to implement NPR in its current format, with Punjab being the first one to pass a\u00a0resolution against it<\/a>\u00a0in January.Pressure is also mounting on the government in Jharkhand, where Congress is an ally, to hold off on the exercise.\u00a0\u00a0In January, the Kerala government also said that it\u00a0won\u2019t implement NPR<\/a>, pointing out that the decision was taken to maintain law and order in the state. However, the Pinarayi Vijayan regime said it would cooperate with the normal Census process.\u00a0\u00a0The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has also been\u00a0firm in its opposition<\/a>\u00a0to NPR in its 2020 format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0By \u2013 Neelam Pandey, ctc: The Print <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Delhi:\u00a0 Apart from four Congress-ruled states \u2013 Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there are two National<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-6"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vikalpvimarsh.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}