Chidambaram of Congress: NPR is NRC in disguise; lauds students for protests on CAA

GUWAHATI: Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram said that the NPR process is "disguised" to carry out NRC in the country. Chidambaram who was in Kolkata to conduct a leadership training camp among state party leaders urged political parties opposing CAA, NRC to come together and stand united.

"As far as we are concerned, NPR is a disguised NRC. And we will not agree to the NPR being rolled out on April 1," he said according to media reports.

He insisted that the gathering of party workers to spread the word and explain "the sinister purpose of the CAA, the mischief behind the NPR and mobilise public opinion against CAA," to people.

He added that this was a fight to save the Constitution of the country.

He also praised students for leading protests against CAA and fighting for "constitutional integrity."

NPR is National Population Register and NRC is National Register of Citizens

NPR will be prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State, and National level. It becomes mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR. NRC is expected to be a countrywide exercise.

Under NPR, a usual resident is anyone who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more. It could also be a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars. The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. NRC is an exercise to ensure who are the legitimate citizens of the country.

CAA aims to protect religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan by giving them Indian Citizenship. The cut-off date for those to be given citizenship in India has been fixed at, on or before 31st December 2014.

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