After losing the NRC-CAA game, Congress starts the NPR protests without even changing the strategy

The Congress and its entire ecosystem had swung into action after the passage of CAA in the Parliament. The protests had only backfired for the Congress as the narrative ended up exposing their hypocrisy and how they changed stance over the issue out of political expediency and convenience. Exposed on the CAA-NRC agenda, the Congress has now started propaganda on National Population Register (NPR) without even changing the strategy of relying on rumours and fear mongering that it had employed during the CAA-NPR protests. 

Ever since the Modi government started the NPR, the Congress started nefarious propaganda against it, forgetting that it was actually the Congress-led UPA which had initiated the NPR in 2010, the BJP led NDA government is only updating it. In fact, the NPR was UPA government’s flagship. Bragging about NPR’s scale, the then Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram had said, “It is for the first time in human history we are beginning to identify, count, record, enumerate and eventually issue a identity card to 120 cr people.”

The UPA government had stuck steadfastly to the NPR, and in 2012, the then President, Pratibha Patil enrolled herself in the National Population Register. Thereafter, in 2013 the UPA government also launched an Anthem of the National Population Register in order to promote the initiative and spread awareness about it. Having remained out of power plants for a full term and compelled to remain out of power for another term, the Sonia Gandhi led Congress seems to have forgotten the stance that it took merely six years ago. 

https://twitter.com/iAnkurSingh/status/1209416675763740674?s=20

Moreover, the argument that it is the BJP which has tied NPR to NRC is also an utter falsehood. The Congress even tweeted from its official handle that the 2018-19 Annual Home Ministry report states that ‘NPR is the first step to NRC.’ The fact remains that this line- ‘NPR is first step towards preparation of NRIC’ has been taken from a UPA document that was drafted by the Home Ministry in 2011, that is, during the UPA era. Carrying out an NRIC as a sub-set of the NPR was clearly the official policy of the UPA government. Either the Congress has forgotten its own stand or it is just trying to mislead the nation.

Contrary to the allegations that the Modi government is trying to push the NRIC (a pan-India NRC) by conducting an NPR, the then Minister of State for Home Affairs Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary had expressly said that the Registrar General of India had not been asked to identify citizens and non-citizens while conducting the NPR, while replying to a question on December 16, 2014.

The stand of the Congress has also been exposed on the issue of CAA. Tarun Gogoi, Congress leader and former Assam Chief Minister had submitted a memorandum to then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh in 2012 requesting that those Indian citizens who had to flee facing discrimination and religious persecution at the time of partition should not be treated as foreigners. Then, the Congress again reiterated this stance in the year 2015 demanding that Hindu Bengalis, Buddhists who migrated from Bangladesh be granted citizenship. It must be borne in mind that this was also the time when the UPA was bragging about the NPR, which as per its own version would have laid the groundwork for an NRIC. Manmohan Singh, one of the seniormost Congress leaders and the former Prime Minister of India too had emphasised upon giving citizenship to persecuted minorities. He had said, “While I am on this subject, I would like to say something about the treatment of refugees. After the partition of our country, the minorities in countries like Bangladesh have faced persecution, and it is our moral obligation that if circumstances force people, these unfortunate people, to seek refuge in our country, our approach to granting citizenship to these unfortunate persons should be more liberal. I sincerely hope that the deputy prime minister will bear this in mind in charting out the future course of action with regard to the Citizenship Act,” while speaking in the Upper House of the Parliament.

Today, the Congress and its supporters are accusing BJP of “Muslim-filtration”. However, the manner in which the Congress had initiated the NPR during its tenure with the motive of ultimately pushing a pan-India NRC. Then, it also always reiterated the commitment of giving citizenship to the persecuted minorities coming from out neighborhood- the same goal which the Modi government pursued through the CAA.

It is hypocritical, petty and anti-national on the part of the Congress to oppose the BJP with false accusations of conducting NRC simultaneously with the CAA. The Congress always had the same objectives on citizenship as the BJP. It had even started pursuing them with the NPR, while Tarun Gogoi requested citizenship for those persecuted at around the same time. What Congress is doing now has to be one of the most shameful and biggest U-turns in the Indian political discourse till date. By opposing the NPR, Congress has only exposed its sheer hypocrisy and duplicity over the sensitive issue.