The Delhi Assembly on Friday passed a resolution calling upon the Centre not to go ahead with the National Population Register and the National Register of Citizens, with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal underlining that the panic over the new citizenship matrix was caused by home minister Amit Shah’s explanation of its “chronology”.

The resolution in the AAP-led Assembly — after almost every non-BJP state government has passed one — comes on the heels of the Delhi riots that have jeopardised the party’s secular reputation.

The resolution urged the Centre “to withdraw and not carry out the whole exercise of NPR and NRC, (should the Government of India insist on going ahead, to restrict the exercise to NPR only with 2010 format with no new fields added to it).”

It also posed several questions to the Centre: “1. Will NPR data feed into NRC?

2. When will NRC be started?

3. What documents will be accepted as conclusive proof of citizenship?

4. If a bona fide citizen is not in possession of any of these documents, how does he/she obtain them now?”

Kejriwal said that none in his cabinet had birth certificates. “Will the whole Delhi cabinet go to detention centres?” he asked.

The NPR updation is scheduled to begin in the capital on April 1, and AAP leader Raghav Chadha told this newspaper that it was necessary for the Assembly to express the citizens’ fears before that.

Although AAP opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act in Parliament, it steered clear of protests against it. Kejriwal even spoke out against the street protests. But after the riots that killed at least 52 people, the party has faced flak for shying away from protecting minorities and not challenging the BJP on bigotry.

Minister Gopal Rai, who introduced the resolution, said: “Either the Centre must clarify that they are amending the 2003 citizenship rules, and say that there will be no NRC in this country or else it is clear that the home minister is misleading people.”

His party colleague Atishi cited the 2003 rules and said: “When the home minister says the NPR is for census only, he is lying. The NPR is only for the NRC and it is being prepared for no other purpose.”

Kejriwal quoted the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament last year, in which he said that implementing the NRC was a priority of the Centre, and home minister Amit Shah’s reiteration of this in Parliament in December.

“There is confusion now because the honourable home minister has tried to explain the chronology. He said first CAA will come, then NPR will come and then the NRC… In Parliament yesterday, he made it clear that documents won’t be asked for the NPR. He did not say that documents will not be asked for the NRC… If the NPR happens now, the NRC will definitely follow,” the chief minister said.

Kejriwal again quoted the home minister’s December interview that Aadhaar numbers and voter cards are not proof of citizenship. Kejriwal said that 90 per cent of the population, who do not have birth certificates, are worried about what is happening in Assam. He read out short biographies of five people who were held in Assam’s detention centres for foreigners, including two who perished there.

The BJP opposed the resolution in the House.