Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that people can choose to omit the three new questions in the National Population Register (NPR).
He was speaking to reporters at Madurai airport on Sunday when he said that NPR will be carried out during the Census in Tamil Nadu and that people can choose to not answer the newly-added questions. He also said that the NPR details in Tamil Nadu would be collected on the same lines as is done in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“A central minister has also clarified that if the person wishes, he can divulge these details. It is not compulsory. They need not submit any proof for this information. It has been clarified,” he said.
The three newly-added questions in the NPR form require citizens to provide details about the language spoken by the person, as well as the place of birth of their mother and father and details of the parents' Aadhar card, ration cards and voter IDs. He also pointed out that NPR is nothing new since it was implemented in 2010 during the UPA government. However, unlike the previous NPR, this time, the addition of the new questions has sparked protests with critics arguing that this is the first step towards implementing the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), which would identify illegal migrants in the country.
CM Edappadi Palaniswami had announced in December that the NPR exercise in Tamil Nadu will take place between April and September this year. The NPR exercise will take place simultaneously with the Census.
Tamil Nadu has witnessed a number of protests in the recent past against the CAA, NRC and the NPR. In Chennai’s Washermanpet, a protest resembling the famed Shaheen Bagh protests in Delhi has been going on since February 14.
In January this year, the Andhra Pradesh government said that it was planning to conduct the NPR exercise between April and September, but was quick to add that no documents were required to be submitted as part of the survey.
"People are not required to submit any document to the enumerators during the NPR exercise. Enumerators are just required to record whatever answers are given by the people and not to press for any further answers to any query if they do not intend to give and also not to ask for any document," the Government Order (GO) stated.
On the other hand, the KCR government in Telangana has maintained relative silence on the issue of NPR, even while it has been vocal in opposing the CAA. While reports suggested that the government may put the NPR exercise on hold, an official confirmation is awaited.
Two states - Kerala and West Bengal- have refused to implement NPR.