Source – thehindu.com
National vice-president of Bihar ruling party Janata Dal (United) Prashant Kishor on Sunday thanked Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi for their “unequivocal rejection” of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens while offering an assurance that both CAA and NRC will not be implemented in Bihar.
However, when asked for his comment on the National Population Register (NPR) for which the Bihar government issued a notification on December 18, 2019, Mr. Kishor told The Hindu that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has to clarify on the issue as Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi has already declared that the process of NPR would be started from May 15, 2020.
“I join my voice with all to thank #Congress leadership for their formal and unequivocal rejection of #CAA_NRC. Both @rahulgandhi & @priyankagandhi deserve special thanks for their efforts on this count. Also would like to reassure to all – Bihar me CAA-NRC implement nahi hoga [CAA-NRC will not be implemented in Bihar]”, tweeted Mr. Kishor. His tweet came a day after Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi at the party’s working committee meeting on Saturday said “NPR 2020 is a disguised NRC” and termed the CAA as “discriminator and divisive whose sinister purpose is to divide the country along religious lines.”
Mr. Kishor said West Bengal, Kerala and other States too had started the process of NPR before the controversy erupted but later, when they had a relook, they stopped it.
In December 2019 when asked about the implementation of NRC in Bihar, Mr. Kumar had quipped, “kahe ka NRC? [NRC for what?]”.
In January this year, his deputy Modi said “the process of NPR will start in Bihar” and “no government has the courage to stop the NPR exercise in their respective States.” “The first phase of Indian census 2021 and the process of National Population Register (NPR) in Bihar will be done between the period of May 15 to June 28’ 2020”, said the Bihar government notification issued in December last year.