Home minister Amit Shah said there was no provision to put residents in the doubtful category during the conduct of National Population Register (NPR) as feared by the opposition. Shah’s clarification came after Congress MP Kapil Sibal alleged CAA combined with NPR could lead to singling out poor people.
“Respondents who can’t furnish all details will be put in the D category you say, but that is not going to happen,” Shah said triggering a huge din in the opposition benches.
Shah and Kapil Sibal, who is also a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, had a side debate over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act during the minister’s reply to the discussion on Delhi riots in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
While hitting out at the opposition for alleged politicisation by spreading misinformation around the act which led to the riots in the capital, Amit Shah asked Sibal if he could point out if there was even a single provision in the CAA that took away citizenship.
On repeated reference, Sibal stood up and said: “We are not saying that CAA will take away anyone’s citizenship.” Sibal was interrupted by a huge din in the house and Shah intervened to say several of Sibal’s party colleagues had made statements alleging the CAA will take away citizenship of a particular group.
When the din lessened a bit, Sibal said the CAA had to be looked at in reference to the NPR.
“When NPR is done, 10 more questions will be asked and when the enumerator puts a D (doubtful) mark against the name of the respondents, then they will be targeted,” Sibal put his statement into context.
“This (CAA) is not against Muslims but against the poor,” Sibal added.
Shah responded by saying that the government had clarified on several occasions that no document needed to be presented during the NPR exercise.
“No document is being asked for in the NPR, any information not available with a person can’t be shared with an official and no one in the country needs to fear the process of NPR,” shah said.
