NEW DELHI, Jan 31: President Ram Nath Kovind did not refer to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in his address to the joint sitting of Parliament at the beginning of the budget session on Friday, seven months after announcing that information about every Indian will be collected for the database on “priority basis.”
On 20 June, 2019, soon after the formation of the new Lok Sabha, Kovind had said that illegal infiltrators posed a major threat to India’s internal security and this was leading to social imbalance in many parts of the country as well as putting a huge pressure on limited livelihood opportunities.
“My government has decided to implement the process of National Register of Citizens on priority basis in areas affected by infiltration. Security along the border will be further strengthened to prevent infiltration,” he had said.
However, on Friday, the president made no reference to the NRC.
There have been countrywide protests against the NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA was enacted by Parliament in December 2019.
The Supreme Court-monitored exercise of updating the NRC was carried out only in Assam. In the final NRC, a list of Assam’s residents published on 31 August, 2019, excluded names of 19 lakh people, creating a huge controversy. (PTI)
