Hyderabad, February 17: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi demanded Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to halt the National Population Register (NPR) updation exercise. Calling it a precursor to the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC), Owaisi claimed that the NPR has no other purpose but to lay the groundwork for the citizenship verification exercise.

Owaisi, while addressing the media on Monday, said the KCR government in Telangana must take cue from the Left Front regime in Kerala. The latter has stopped all processes related to the NPR updation exercise. Owaisi further stated that halting the NPR will neither affect the census exercise nor the roll-out of benefits under the social welfare schemes. 'Enumerator Go Back' Sign Boards Put Up by Residents in Old City of Hyderabad.

"I request Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao to put a stay on National Population Register enumeration as Kerala did. NPR has no relation with the census and social welfare schemes. It is purely an exercise to implement NRC in the future," said Owaisi, the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad.

Update by ANI

The NPR, which was first carried out in 2010, has drawn apprehensions as the government has rejigged the questionnaire. In a departure from the past precedent, the enumerators would be quizzing the respondents on the place of birth and date of birth of their parents. This has prompted the critics to call NPR a "veiled form of the NRC".

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had earlier attempted to dispel flak by claiming that the NPR has no links with the NRC. However, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters some NPR data "may or may not be" used for the NRC exercise. Following his remarks, Congress president Sonia Gandhi directed all governments headed by her party to halt the NPR updation process.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 17, 2020 04:30 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).