Have asked Centre to drop contentious clauses from NPR forms: Nitish Kumar

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to "additional clauses" inserted in the National Population Register (NPR) forms and said that the state government has written to the Centre urging that these be dropped.

Replying to a debate on an adjournment motion moved by Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav and others, Kumar told the assembly that there should be "no confusion" regarding how the NPR exercise would be carried out in the state and that nobody would be asked to furnish information like places of birth of parents.

Reading out the text of the letter to the Centre, Kumar said it has also been proposed by the Bihar government that "transgenders" be included in the gender column.

A strong opponent of the National Register for Citizens despite alliance with the BJP, Kumar, however, disapproved of "hauva" (bogey) of the NRC being raised by the opposition despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's categorical statement that a countrywide implementation was not on the anvil.

He also sought to make light of the virulent opposition by leaders of the RJD and the Congress to the CAA, reading out from the parliamentary proceedings of 2003 to underscore that leaders such as former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former president Pranab Mukherjee and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had been in favour of fast-tracking of grant of citizenship to refugees from the neighbouring countries.