Patna: Amid continuing unrest across the country over the contentious new citizenship law, the Bihar state assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution against implementing the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in the state.
The House also passed the resolution to implement the National Population Register (NPR) which critics say is the first step towards implementing the citizenship act, on the old format and not on the new one which has several new clauses.
With this the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-ruled Bihar becomes the first Indian state to pass such resolution.
Curiously, the BJP is a partner in the ruling NDA led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who heads the Janata Dal United.
The development shows the “tactical retreat” of the NDA over the NRC and the NPR ahead of the coming state elections in Bihar scheduled later this year.
With two successive defeats at close intervals, first in Jharkhand and then in Delhi where it lost very badly, the NDA doesn’t want to lose any further state, especially Bihar which plays a key role in deciding the course national politics, experts say.
So far, it was only the non-BJP/NDA-ruled states had passed resolutions against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
They included Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Puducherry but now this is the first time that any state under the NDA rule has rejected the NRC, indicating the mounting pressures on the ruling BJP camp.
The move is said to be part of the NDA’s strategy to extend olive branches to the Muslims who have been protesting across the country over the controversial citizenship law.
The nationwide protests continuing since December last year when this was law was passed from the parliament has claimed around 50 lives so far.
Although the BJP banks on the supports of the Hindu voters, its ally the JD-U has significant support base among the Muslims but the latter have turned hostile right since the JD-U supported the Citizenship bill in the Parliament.
Now with the passing a resolution against the NRC, the JD-U hopes to win the support of the Muslim voters.
However, the Opposition described it as the victory of democracy and the common men. “The Bihar assembly passed a unanimous resolution not to implement NRC in Bihar due to our pressures,” Bihar opposition leader and Rashtriya Janata Dal lawmaker Tejashwi Yadav commented. He said they have pushed the BJP 1,000 KM back while it had declared not to drag its feet even for an inch.
What was further interesting, the Bihar assembly speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary addressed the opening day of the current budget session in Urdu apparently in a bid to woo the Muslim voters, drawing bitter criticisms from the Opposition. This amply indicates how the BJP and the NDA are under pressures to hold the fast losing ground.
