'We're Not Provoking Anti-CAA Protests, But Staging It': Chidambaram

Launching a scathing attack on the Modi government over National Register of Citizens (NRC), senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday asked Home Minister Amit Shah to categorically mention whether NRC is ruled out or not and sought clarity over its implementation with National Population Register (NPR). He said that NPR is clearly linked to NRC, and if it had not been the case, he added, “Why did Home Minister not say we are doing NPR, we will not do NRC?”

He attacked the BJP over Assam NRC as he hinted that due to the ‘bitter’ experience of Assam NRC, the govt has not proceeded further with a pan-India NRC exercise.

P. Chidambaram, Congress to ANI: They (BJP) must also say we are not doing NRC because we have bitter experience of Assam NRC. When we did NPR 2010, there was no Assam NRC. We did not have bitter experience of more than 19 lakh people being declared stateless. https://t.co/uAMf2vbyW0

— ANI (@ANI) January 4, 2020

“The elephant in the room is 19 lakh, six thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven. Why do you ignore that elephant? That elephant is sitting there. In the face of that elephant, you see that elephant and you pretend that there is no problem”, Chidambaram added.

Moreover, the former Union Minister said that the then UPA govt in 2010 conducted only NPR which aided the census. He said that during Congress’ rule, there was no Assam NRC and UPA govt had no ‘bitter experience of more than 19 lakh people being declared stateless’.

Chidambaram said that the Congress party is not provoking anti-CAA protests, but is staging anti-CAA protests and added, “We're proud of it”. He went on to ask the govt why are they being called as provocateurs.

He added that his party has been propagating its point of view and asked if students, youth, women supported their point of view and coming out on streets, what was wrong with that.