No CAA, NRC in Bihar: Kishor, Gandhis thanked for support

New Delhi: JD(U) vice-president and poll strategist Prashant Kishor took to Twitter on Sunday to declare that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be implemented in Bihar.

"I join my voice with all to thank #Congress leadership for their formal and unequivocal rejection of #CAA_NRC. Both @rahulgandhi & @priyankagandhi deserves special thanks for their efforts on this count.

Also would like to reassure to all - Bihar me CAA-NRC implement nahi hoga [CAA-NRC will not be implemented in Bihar]," Prashant Kishor tweeted.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party JD(U) had supported the Centre in passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 in both houses of Parliament last month.

After Prashant Kishor's declaration on Sunday, questions are being raised whether the CAA will be implemented in Bihar or not even as the Centre, two days ago, had issued a gazette notification announcing that the new law has come into effect from January 10, 2020.

However, there are several states ruled by Opposition, like Kerala and West Bengal, which has clearly stated that they will not implement the new citizenship law in their states.

The Congress passed a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens at a meeting of the Working Committee, its highest decision-making body, according to NDTV report.

Prashant Kishor's shoutout to Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi was seen as acknowledgment of their efforts to prevail over a section of Congress leaders toeing the line of soft Hindutva.

Sources indicated that this section had wanted to maintain an ambivalent stand on the issue to keep the majority voters from getting upset.

In her address to the Working Committee, Sonia Gandhi too warned the section, top leaders of the Congress should not be under any illusion that NPR was a "benign exercise".

"In form and content, NPR 2020 is a disguised NRC," she said. The CAA she termed a "discriminatory and divisive" law, whose "sinister" purpose was to divide people on religious lines.

A section of leaders maintain if Kumar, for the sake of the coalition, agreed to the NPR, then later on, he would not have a problem with the National Register of Citizens either.

This was part of the reason why Prashant Kishore earlier demanded that the Chief Minister reject the NRC in clear and unequivocal terms.

The demand took him close to a break with the party, amid a face-off with the BJP over his stance on citizenship law and the NRC.

As for the NPR, party sources said Prashant Kishore has indicated that people were reading too much into the state government's notification, which happened before the controversy over the issue started.

"If you see, even Bengal and Kerala had issued the notification, but everyone backtracked once they realised it was a step in the direction of the divisive NRC," a party leader said.