‘PM Modi was right, no discussion on NRC right now’: Amit Shah

Home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertion that there is no pan-India discussion on National Register of Citizens (NRC) at the moment. The home minister emphasised there have been no talks on the subject either in Parliament or the Union Cabinet.

The minister again underscored that the Citizenship Act is only about providing citizenship and takes away nothing from anyone.

The minister also made it clear that the National Population Register, which is a list of "usual residents" of the country, is a decadal exercise. He said the exercise will only map people who have shifted to new states. It registers new children and removes people who're dead, said the minister.

He said the government is not doing anything new, the processes have been put in place by the past governments.

Shah asserted that NPR was a continuation of a move started by the former UPA government.

"It is a constitutional provision and is the same exercise which was conducted by the Congress-led government earlier. It is neither a part of our manifesto nor our promise. It was a good move started by the Congress which is simply being followed," he said.

Shah's remarks came on a day the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for conducting Census of India 2021 and updation of National Population Register.

He assured that no person should have any reason to be concerned about the exercise and data collected under NPR exercise is helpful for the government to formulate schemes for people.

"The data collected under NPR will be used to formulate plans for the betterment of the public through central government schemes. It is not an exercise to decide citizenship of any person," Shah said.