The United Central Refugee Council — which works to safeguard the interest of refugees — and several other organisations demanded that the central government announce any date after December 31, 2014, as the cut-off date to recognise all who have entered the country, irrespective of religion, as citizens of India.

The demand comes at a time when the central government has said that they would implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) very soon. The CAA was passed in Parliament four years ago but the Centre is yet to frame rules.

“There was no problem with the issue of citizenship in our country before 2003. It was only during (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee’s tenure there were some changes in the rules and that created all the confusion,” CPM leader Sujan Chakraborty said.

The CPM leader was referring to an all-India NRC, which was introduced by the Vajpayee government in 2003 by amending the Citizenship Act of 1955.

According to the 2003 amendment, the Centre had decided to count all its citizens and create a National Population Register or NPR. The government will then verify the citizenship of the people counted.

Once it does, the verified citizens will become part of another document, the “National Register of Indian Citizens”.

Attacking both the BJP and Trinamul, Chakraborty added: “Our chief minister (Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee), who was with the NDA in 2003, didn’t take
any positive step to intervene and stop the move. By not venting her opposition, she had in a way supported the then central government’s move. Now, the central government is trying to mislead the people on the citizenship issue. The bills were passed four years ago but the rules are yet to be framed. They are telling lies and are misleading the people only to get votes.”

The forum demanded the amendment made during the Vajpayee government be scrapped.

“The government will have to stop their conspiracy to strip off citizenship of the people of the country. They will have to drop their plan to implement the NRC and the CAA in the country,” Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya, who was present at the news meet, said.