On Thursday, the EK Palaniswami led government in Tamil Nadu put on hold the exercise of updating the National Population Register (NPR) in the state. Revenue Minister Udhayakumar said this was because the Center had failed to respond to the Chief Minister’s queries about some additional questions in the NPR form.
He told Indian Express, “The newly added three questions have created a panic among minorities and Muslim communities. Our Chief Minister wrote a letter to the centre seeking clarification on the newly added questions but we didn’t receive any response.”
While the Tamil Nadu government has not passed a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which lies at the heart of the entire citizenship conundrum, the TN government has only issued notification about the census and not NPR. But the Opposition believes that this is not an effective stand and amounts to mere tokenism. DMK and its allies staged a walk out from the house. Earlier, DMK chief MK Stalin had demanded that AIADMK release a copy of the letter it sent to the Center dubbing it a ‘drama’ given how the AIADMK had voted in favour of the CAA.
He told Times of India, “It is only after the AIADMK MPs supported and helped pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament that the people in the country had come to the streets protesting against the Act.” He added, “The state government, instead of defending the Central Act, should refuse to roll out NPR in the state.”
So far, the staunchest opposition to the NPR has come from West Bengal, that not only refused to implement it, but also did not send a representative to participate in the national workshop on the subject. Other states like Kerala, Punjab, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have passed resolutions against it while Telangana and Odisha have also raised grave concerns about questions in the NPR form.