Vijayan said the state cannot cancel the Central government’ s notification asking officials to start the enumeration process
Thiruvananthpuram: Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday assured the state assembly will not be implementing National Population Register or NPR but the state will go ahead with the census process.
Vijayan said the state cannot cancel the Central government’ s notification asking officials to start the enumeration process.
“But we can stay it. We have stayed the NPR process. Since the opposition leader is insisting, the government will look into it.
Our government stands by the decision that the census will take place in the state. We will not implement NPR. The questions for that are different,” said Vijayan. In December the government had itself ordered stoppage of all activities in connection with NPR in the state considering ‘apprehensions’ of the public that it would lead to NRC in the wake of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The opposition trooped out of the House after Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan refused to allow notice for adjournment motion requesting the government to temporarily halt the census activities until concerns related to the NPR were cleared.
The UDF MLAs left the hall even as the CM assured the House that all activities related to NPR were put on hold and the Kerala government had issued direction to the district collectors to stop all NPR related works.
“The census work is nothing new and is a normal process. Information on citizens will only be collected for the census.
The chief secretary has also issued directions to district collectors in this regard,” Vijayan said, responding to an adjournment motion moved by Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) MLA KM Shaji.
As per Shaji, NPR and the census require similar data and it was a big mistake to say that only the census activities will take place. “Kerala government has claimed that it has decided to avoid two questions from the census data questions. But the central government itself has said they don’t require answers to those questions.
The census officials have been appointed and now they will directly report to the central government and not the state,” Shaji said. But Vijayan countered Shaji and said opposition’s attempt to raise the matter in the House was part of “some agenda” as the Kerala government had made it clear that it will not allow NPR in the state.
“No detention camps will be opened in the state. NPR will not be implemented and issued a specific direction on the matter. If any official goes beyond such directions, strong action will be taken,” Vijayan said.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramesh Chennithala said they understand the importance of the census process, but cannot allow it to hold without addressing the concerns regarding it.
“We cannot stop census proceedings. But we cannot simply move forward without addressing the concerns.
If the confusion and the concerns are not cleared, we need to stop the census process,” Chennithala said. He also said even though the CM and his party were of the view that the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) should not be implemented, two students are now in custody and were being inquired by the NIA under UAPA.
Congress leader said “The President of India says NPR will be implemented, Prime Minister says it will not be implemented, while the Home minister says it will be implemented. It is totally confusing. We need clarity in this matter first,” he said. On January 16 the state-directed all its officials to ensure that NPR was not mentioned while sending the communication on Census 2021.
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