Congress Introduced NPR in 2010, Now Speaking against It in Opposition, Says PM Modi in Parliament

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a strong defence of the National Population Register (NPR), saying it was being updated to allow the rightful beneficiaries get the benefit of government welfare schemes.

In his response on the debate over the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in Rajya Sabha, he said the NPR was first done in 2010 and later updated in 2015. He said census and NPR are "usual administrative" processes which have been carried out previously as well but have now suddenly become contentious.

Questions asked in the NPR are purely governance related, he said citing the example of asking citizens of the language spoken by them and their parents are deeply linked to the schools that need to be set up in that particular area.

"Dont try to mislead people," he said, asking opposition parties to not politicise the issue for narrow political gains.

"They are opposing (NPR) for narrow and frivolous political narrative. This is anti-poor," he said, adding his government had made productive use of the data collected by previous NPR to give benefits of the schemes to the poor.

"We have record of your NPR, no citizen was persecuted based on that record of NPR," he said, citing the statement of the home minister of the Congress-led UPA government appealing to citizens to enrol in the exercise.

Modi said the same Congress which, while in power in 2010, introduced the NPR in its term, was opposing it now as the NDA had showed interest. He said that by opposing the NPR and spreading misinformation on the subject, it was working against the interests of the poor of the country. He blamed the stand of the Congress' stand on its 'vote-bank politics'.

"The Census and NPR are common administrative measures which have been done earlier as well. It is your compulsion of vote-bank politics that is preventing you from supporting it now that you are in the opposition," he said. "In 2010 your own Home Minister not just introduced the NPR but also appealed to the media to publicise the move. Have we, sitting in opposition since 2014, used this NPR to raise questions about anyone's citizenship?"

Modi said the UPA did not just start the exercise but collected data of crores of people, including their facial recognition data, during its tenure.

(With inputs from PTI)