NPR: Ananth highlights BJPs core concern

With his observations on the National Population Register,and putting on record his partys apprehensions on going ahead with the NPR project,along with the Census exercise that led to a showdown with RJDs Lalu Prasad,BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar on Wednesday raised an issue that has been part of the BJPs core concern for many years now.

Ananth said the BJP,as also the Vajpayee-led NDA government,had always been committed to the idea of National Register of Citizenship. Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee conceptualized the idea of Multipurpose National Identity Card,and former home minister L K Advani,took the idea forward and undertook a pilot project on MNIC in 12 states,and one union territory, he said. The BJP-led government moved towards the idea of National Register of Citizenship,and the pilot project launched by Advani was completed in 2008,but neither was the report published,nor the details of the pilot project shared.

We want a national register of citizenship; not a national register of population, Ananth quoted Vajpayee as saying,while reiterating the partys position that illegal immigrants and infiltrators must not be accorded legitimate citizen status. He then quoted from a Supreme Court observation,likening illegal infiltration to external aggression,and then raised a concern that has often been discussed in BJP office-bearers meetings in recent weeks.

The BJP has argued that the column in the proposed NPR exercise,reading nationality as stated which would rely on the answer of the respondent,to record the observations,for National Population Register,could well be used by illegal immigrants and infiltrators to lay claim to citizenship.