The AAP led Delhi Assembly has passed a resolution against the National Population Register(NPR)and the National Register of Citizens(NRC), urging the central government to withdraw its decision to carry on with these exercises.
The Delhi government feels that these enumeration exercises are creating fear and panic among the people and therefore should be cancelled out. The assembly held a one day special session to pass a resolution against the NPR and NRC exercises.
In this one day special session it also held discussions about how Delhi could deal with the outbreak of Covid-19 epidemic and what steps it could take to curb its spread in Delhi.
The resolution had been moved by cabinet minister Gopal Rai.
The resolution passed by the Delhi government to go against the NPR and NRC comes in the backdrop of various other states making up their minds to oppose the CAA, which was approved by the President last year.
The states that decided to go against the CAA, NPR and NRC prior to Delhi are Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan. Opposition parties claim that the CAA, NPR, NRC taken together would adversely impact the citizens of the country.
While addressing the assembly, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said under two processes citizens will be asked to prove citizenship by birth certificates, something that is not available to 90% of the people. He said, “Under the NPR and NRC, the public will be asked to prove their citizenship. Ninety percent of the people have no birth certificate to prove this. Will everyone be sent to the detention centre?This fear is haunting everyone.My appeal to the Centre is to stop NPR and NRC.”
Kejriwal said that even in the Delhi Assembly of 70 legislators, only nine had birth certificates. The resolution says, “In the interest of the nation, particularly when the economy is witnessing worst ever d0wn slide and the unemployment is witnessing terrifying growth with the threat of corona pandemic looming large, it invests all its energies and resources on real needs… rather than unnecessary issues like NPR/NRC.”
