After Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka Congress requests State government to not implement NPR

The legislative unit of the Karnataka Congress on Tuesday decided that they will appeal to the Karnataka government headed by the BJP, to not implement the National Population Register (NPR) in the state to maintain the sovereignty of the Constitution.

The decision was taken after a party meeting, attended by leaders like Siddaramaiah, Dinesh Gundu Rao, G Parameshwara and RV Deshpande.

Earlier in December 2019, former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram had called NPR to be a  non-controversial issue which was made a "suspect and controversial" because of BJP's approach.

Earlier, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had also stated that his government would appeal the Centre to reverse the conditions of NPR to those prevailing in 2010 as questions proposed in the register are causing insecurities in the minds of minorities.

READ | Centre discussing NPR with states

Centre Discussing NPR With States

On March 3, the Centre informed that it was discussing with state governments the preparations for the update of the National Population Register (NPR) from April 1 to September 30. Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai had informed in the Lok Sabha that no document will be collected during the exercise, which will be carried out along with the house-listing phase of Census 2021.

"The government is in discussion with the states having concerns regarding the preparation of NPR. The demographic and other particulars of each family and individual are to be updated/collected during the exercise of updation of NPR. No document is to be collected during this exercise," he said while responding to a written question.

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What is the National Population Register?

The NPR, first prepared in 2010 and updated in 2015, is an identity database maintained of all the usual residents of the country and is prepared at the local, sub-District, District, State and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955. Any resident who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more, or intends to do the same has to mandatorily register in the NPR. The Centre has stated that NPR is a self-declaration where no document, bio-metric, etc. required for it.

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(With inputs from ANI)