Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday announced that the state would request the centre to follow the 2010 format for the National Population Registry (NPR) exercise. This would spare citizens from revealing their mother tongue, place and dates of birth of their parents.
In a tweet, Mr Reddy said that the state assembly would pass a resolution in this regard in the ensuing budget session. He seems to have taken a cue from Nitish Kumar, his Bihar counterpart, who got a resolution passed in the assembly that NPR would be done strictly in accordance with the 2010 format.
But, it is not clear yet what the state government would do if the Centre decided to go ahead with the NPR exercise with its new 2020 format. The basic difference between the two formats was collecting data of parents’ place and date of birth that created fear among several people, particularly those from the Muslim community. “Some questions proposed in the NPR are causing insecurity in minds of minorities of my state,” Mr Reddy said, adding that after elaborate consultations within his party it was decided to request the centre to revert to the 2010 format.
As many as 15 details of identity of individual members of each household were gathered during 2010. But in 2020, the centre wants to collect additional information pertaining to mother tongue, places and dates of birth of both parents even if they are not living in the same house, or even alive.
While states like West Bengal and Kerala have already announced that they would not take up the NPR exercise, several non-BJP states have expressed concerns at a high-level meeting held by union home secretary with chief secretaries of all states.
Mr Reddy had initially supported the NDA government’s controversial CAA . The YSRC government had even issued a gazette notification taking up NPR. However, his partymen from the minority community, including deputy CM S.B. Amzath Basha, convinced Mr Reddy to oppose any move of the centre that goes against the interests of Muslims.
Ruling party MLA from Guntur East Md Mustafa threatened to resign if his party failed to pass a resolution in the assembly opposing CAA, NPR and NRC at a public meeting recently.
