Personal details given for National Population Register (NPR) would be made public and the confidentiality of personal information under the Census Act could be compromised, said Manithaneya Makkal Katchi leader M.H. Jawahirullah.
Addressing the cadre of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led Secular Progressive Alliance on the occasion of inaugurating a signature campaign against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) here on Sunday, he said information given by individuals under the census exercise should be kept confidential. “It is a crime not to share details of family during census enumeration. At the same time, the enumerator is liable for a three-year jail if the confidential information is shared. But, in the light of CAA, the personal information of people, including the mobile phone numbers of all members of the family, their Aadhaar number and other details will be made public like the voter list. This will lead to lot of undesirable consequences,” he said.
Stating that the Centre had miserably failed in maintaining the vigour of the economy of the country, he said the major revenues had been through the ₹1.76 lakh crore received from Reserve Bank of India. Now, the Centre wants to get revenue through disinvestment of public sector units. Such being the poor status of economy, the Centre wants to divert the attention of people through the unconstitutional CAA,” Mr. Jawahirullah said.
Stating that the CAA was trying to split the people of the country on the lines of religion, he said that it was not only against the Muslims, but other communities also.
“Anyone who is not able to give documents to show the date and place of birth of their parents will be declared doubtful citizens. Like people who were forced to stand in queues in front of banks during demonitisation, now people will be forced to stand before taluk offices seeking documents,” he said.
He said the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) was responsible for passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill as its Rajya Sabha members supported it, even as the allies of Bharatiya Janata Party like Janata Dal (United)-led government in Bihar rejected NPR. But the AIADMK did not take any such decision.
The signature campaign was meant to put pressure on the State and the Centre over CAA, NRC and NPR. “Through this campaign, we will tell the government that the people are not ready to give any details during NPR enumeration,” he said.
Representatives from various parties - G. Thalapathy (DMK), V. Karthikeyan (Congress), R. Vijayarajan (CPI-M), M. Saravanan (CPI), M. Boominathan (MDMK) and V. Kaniamuthan (VCK) - participated in the campaign.
