Janata Dal(U) vice-president Prashant Kishor termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement — on there being no discussions on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) within the government — a “tactical retreat” because of widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the BJP’s commitment to a nation-wide NRC.
Speaking exclusively to The Hindu, Mr. Kishor said, “I see it [Prime Minister Modi’s statement] as a tactical retreat to douse the fire after the massive protests we are seeing across the country.”
He said there was a straight connection between the CAA, the NRC and the National Population Register (NPR).
“As far as this whole effort to separate the National Population Register (NPR) and NRC too, let me explain how they are connected. If you knead dough to make bread, you may say that the two — kneading and making bread — are separate processes; you may not finally bake the bread. But the kneading of the dough is an announcement of the intent to bake bread. So the whole idea of saying that the NPR process is not connected to NRC is useless. If you want to dispel doubts, say plainly that there will be no NRC after the NPR process. Currently the government has only said that there have been no discussions over the NRC. Neither Prime Minister Modi nor Home Minister Amit Shah has said there will not be any NRC, while the Cabinet has cleared a budget for NPR,” he said.
The JD(U) leader was also sharply critical of the Congress for not going the whole hog on the CAA-NRC issue.
“Many Chief Ministers have said they will not implement the NRC. That is the only credible way of stopping this. In fact, a couple of Chief Ministers, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, have stopped the NPR process too, which is the starting point for NRC. Congress’ Chief Ministers too say this, but there is a problem there. While Banerjee, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Naveen Patnaik are Chief Ministers, they are also heads of their parties. In the case of the Congress, the CMs per se are not the head of their parties; the party’s policy is decided by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and the Congress president... All I am saying is that if you are so opposed, what is stopping the Congress president from issuing a single line official statement that States under Congress rule will not implement NRC?” he asked.
‘Roots lie in 2003’
On the current issues surrounding the CAA, he said the roots were in the 2003 amendments to the Act, which tasked the government with preparing an NRC. Mr Kishor questioned why the Congress had not repealed the amendment when it held power between 2004 and 2014.
“Beyond 2014, in the last couple of days we are hearing from Congress leaders that Prime Minister Modi and Mr. Shah have contradicted their own stance, after having declared their intention of carrying through the NRC. Show me, even one occasion when the Congress has protested when Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah made these public statements of their intent to go through with the NRC. Yes, questions were asked in Parliament, to which the government has said that they are going to go forward with an NPR and NRC, what was Congress doing then? Did citizens hear any vociferous opposition from the Congress to even the statements of the government?”
On his own party’s vote for the CAA in Parliament and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s declaration later that the NRC will not be implemented in the State, Mr. Kishor said while the vote was a fact, “credit” should be given to Mr. Kumar for his stand on the NRC.
“I have personally said, together with many other colleagues, that this is not consistent with the party’s stance in the past. After the vote though, consultation or pressure has had a bearing, and now Nitish Kumar ji has said on record that he is against the NRC and there will be no NRC exercise in Bihar. It is very important for your readers to also understand here that CAA per se, discriminatory as it is, is not as problematic as it is when clubbed with the NRC. Unless the process of NRC is completed there is no way that the government can discriminate against people, a provision that comes through the CAA. Thus even those who voted for the CAA in Parliament can stop the discrimination that the NRC will engender,” he said.