Left Parties Demand Bihar Assembly Should Pass Resolution against CAA-NRC-NPR

 • Human Chain to be organized across Bihar on 25 January
 • Satyagraha at District HQs on 30 January
 • Bihar Government must guarantee Citizenship Proof of Migrant Biharis
 • Real Culprits in Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Crime are being protected
 • Conspiracy to evict Poor in the Name of Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali

The Left parties have asked Bihar CM Nitish Kumar why he is silent on NPR if he is truly against NRC. We have all witnessed Nitish Ji’s position on the issue of CAA and his so-called secularism has been thoroughly exposed. If you are against NRC, you also have to be against NPR. The Left parties demand that a resolution against CAA-NRC should be passed in the Bihar Assembly on the lines of the Kerala Assembly, and NPR should be immediately stopped in Bihar. Lip service is not enough; we need to see action.

The UPA government had prepared an NPR according to the Act passed in 2003 by the Vajpayi government. That was a mistake committed by them. But after that they neither prepared an NRC nor passed any communally driven citizenship Act. This Citizenship Act has been pushed through by the BJP government.

This time an extra column has been added in the NPR form which requires people to fill in the date of birth of their parents. Clearly, ‘doubtful citizens’ will be identified through this column and documents will be demanded of them at the time of NRC. If date and place of birth of parents are not required, why is this data being collected through NPR? The clarification issued by the government on this issue is clearly lying with regard to demanding documents relating to parents’ birth.

The entire process is willful. There is no specific directive regarding who can be declared a ‘doubtful citizen’. This means that there is huge scope for corruption here. A local official can declare anyone ‘doubtful’, and can demand bribes for not declaring them ‘doubtful’. Anyone can be declared ‘doubtful’ due to caste, gender, sexuality, or political ideology. A communal organization can report an entire religious minority community as ‘doubtful’. There is no such provision in the census; therefore, NPR is a very different exercise and is anti-poor and anti-deprived communities and will open the doors to corruption on a humungous scale. The data collected through NPR will be available to the party in power and this will be extremely dangerous to the health of Indian democracy.

The purpose of NPR is not to stop NRC but to prepare the base for NRC and CAA. Therefore, Nitish Kumar should speak out on this important issue and oppose this entire exercise. The Left parties demand that this should not be implemented in Bihar and a resolution to this effect should be passed in the current Assembly session.

In the NRC recently prepared in Assam, the Bihar government received applications for the verification of 73019 migrant workers from Bihar. Of these, the Bihar government could verify the citizenship of only 17227 workers. 55792 migrant workers who have been living in Assam for a long time are today on the brink of losing their citizenship. It has come to our notice that the DMs of many Districts have turned down verification applications on the grounds that they were illegible. From this we can estimate what a huge crisis the country will face if NPR-NRC is implemented throughout the country. The Left parties demand that the Bihar government should take immediate measures to guarantee the citizenship of all migrant workers.

The Left parties strongly condemned the attack in JNU on students by ABVP-supported goons and slapping of false cases by the police on JNUSU President and other students. This is a totally biased action. ABVP goons are openly admitting that they brutally attacked JNU students but the police and administration are taking no action against them. It is well known that the Delhi police works directly under the Home Ministry and that makes it clear that Modi and Shah, driven by political malice, are crushing democracy, destroying campuses, and protecting goons. The Left parties demand the immediate arrest of all those who perpetrated violence on JNU students.

Meanwhile, the CBI charge-sheet in the Muzaffarpur Shelter Home incident has come to light and is extremely unsatisfactory. The charge-sheet clearly protects the political saviors of the criminals, whereas all action against the political protectors was the main demand of all the protests on this issue. The links of the Muzaffarpur Shelter Home tie up directly to the high-ups in power, but the CBI has done no work in this direction. Departmental action has been recommended against some officials, but everyone knows how things will be ‘managed’ in the name of ‘Departmental action’. CBI has also said that they have got no proof of any murders in the Shelter Home; this in itself is suspicious. The Left parties once again demand proper investigation into the political protection given to the perpetrators, so that the victims can truly get justice.

Today under the ‘Jal Jeevan Hariyali’ scheme the Nitish Kumar government is actually running a campaign to evict the poor. The poor have been issued notices to move out from pond-canal lands. It is known to all that this kind of land is actually under the control of landlords and dominant sections. The government is not taking any action against these powerful landlords but is targeting the poor. The poor are being oppressed and evicted in all parts of the State including Eastern Champaran. They strongly condemned this step by the government. The Bihar government has decided to organize a human chain in ‘support’ of this scheme on 19 January. We appeal to the people of Bihar to boycott this human chain program. This is an open misuse of state machinery and nothing but a stunt for self-advertisement.

The Press Conference was addressed by CPIML Bihar State Secretary Kunal, CPM State Secretary Awadhesh Kumar, CPI leader Vijay Narayan Mishra, CPIML PB member Dhirendra Jha, and CPM State Secretariat member Ganesh Shankar Singh.