No NRC proposal, nor are we willing to do it: Union Minister

Union Minister Faggan Singh Kulaste on Sunday said there was no proposal for a nationwide National Register of Citizens exercise as of now, and the one carried out in Assam was "experimented" by the Congress. Addressing a press conference in Kanker supporting Citizenship Amendment Act, the Union minister of state for steel also said states had no right to decide against implementing a law passed by Parliament.

Queried on the NRC, he said, "In the entire country, NRC is neither a subject (of discussion) nor there is a proposal about it before us. We are not willing to do such an exercise. It should be made clear." He added that "what would happen in the future" was not a matter of discussion at the moment. "As far as Assam is concerned, the NRC exercise was conducted on the direction of the Supreme Court. There was a Congress chief minister in that state and prime minister of the same party at the Centre (when NRC process was launched in Assam), then who should be held guilty? NRC was experimented by Congress not by the BJP," he claimed.

Hitting out at some Congress governments for claiming they would not implement CAA in their respective states, he said, "The Parliament has power to enact laws as per the Constitution. Some state governments have said they will not implement CAA. When Parliament has passed the law and the President of India has approved it, states have no right to make laws (to block its implementation)." He said CAA was not against any community and accused the Congress of spreading disinformation on it..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)