Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Monday sought to dispel misgivings about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Population Register but underscored that the Constitution guaranteed “right to freedom of expression” which ought to be respected while dealing with protests.
Paswan also claimed that it was at his instance that the Union Home Ministry agreed to “amend” the NPR forms wherein columns like those pertaining to places of birth of parents had triggered fears that the exercise might be a precursor to the National Register of Citizens (NRC). “Even I do not know my date of birth. Do I cease to become a citizen on that account? I had told the Home Ministry that these things will cause confusion. Now the Ministry has amended the forms”, he told reporters here.
Notably, the Union Home Ministry had recently stated that people could “skip” the aforementioned columns after a request to the effect was made by many states, not ruled by the BJP, that these be “dropped”. The Union Minister, who holds Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution System portfolio, however sought to allay fears that people not possessing required documents could lose their citizenship and Muslims whom the CAA allegedly discriminates against would suffer the most.
“No Government can dare to snatch away any persons citizenship. It will lead to an upheaval. Any regime which seeks to do so will be torn apart by the media. This is simply not possible”, he said. However, he added “we owe our rise in politics to the 1974 students movement. Now, students, the youth have their own sentiments. We cannot do much about that. But it is true that the police often goes overboard in enforcing rule of law”, said Paswan, who is the founder of Lok Janshakti Party an NDA constituent.