Madhya Pradesh says NPR exercise won’t be undertaken in the state

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath on Monday announced that there will be no National Population Register (NPR) exercise in the state.

“NPR will not be implemented in Madhya Pradesh,” said the CM after party MLA Arif Masood demanded that the state government clear its stand over the issue in a press conference later a day.

After the CM’s remark, Madhya Pradesh will likely become the third state after Kerala and West Bengal which have openly said they will not carry out the NRP exercise in the state.

The issue of NPR in the state came up after a state government’s notification issued on December 9, 2019, saying ‘NRP will be implemented in the state and Census Department officials confirmed that proceedings of NRP would begin from May 1 to June 14 in the state.

Clarifying his stand over the gazetted notification, CM Nath said, “The NPR notification, about which talks were going on, was issued on December 9, 2019. After this, the Centre decided to implement the Citizen (Amendment) Act. It means the NPR notified by the government is not the one under CAA 2019, but as per provisions of CAA-1955s, 2003s rule 3. Despite this, NPR will not be implemented in the state,” he said.

The MP cabinet has already passed a resolution against CAA and had demanded amendment in NPR.

Earlier in the day, Congress MLA from Bhopal Central, Arif Masood, had warned of protests if the government decides to undertake NPR update. Soon after this, law minister PC Sharma said there will be no updation of NPR in Madhya Pradesh.

“There is no move at present to undertake the proposed NPR update exercise in the state. The government is not going to implement it,” Sharma said.

NPR is scheduled to be carried out along with the house-listing phase of the Census exercise from April 1 to September 30. The Census Commission has said the objective of NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every ‘usual resident’ of the country.