KCR seeks to bring together like-minded parties over NRC

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao is planning to bring all like-minded parties on one platform over the issue of the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi said on Wednesday.

He told reporters after a meeting with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) President that the latter is concerned over the environment being created in the country.

Owaisi, who led a delegation of United Muslim Action Committee, said Rao suggested to them to invite leaders of all parties to the protest meeting scheduled at Nizamabad on December 27.

The Hyderabad MP said leaders of the TRS, the Congress and the Left parties would be invited to the meeting and all the protest programmes would now involve all the parties.

"It is for the Chief Minister to decide," Owaisi said when asked if the TRS chief would join hands with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee to bring all parties together on the issue.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader said that since his party was supporting Rao, they would be with him for any united action plan on the issue.

KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, repeatedly impressed upon the delegation that this was not an issue of Muslims alone but of the whole country and the Constitution and hence there is a need to take everybody along. He also stressed the need to maintain peace at any cost.

The delegation, which included leaders from various Muslim organisations, urged KCR not to allow NPR in the state as this was the first step towards NRC. They appeared to him to stay NPR work like Kerala and West Bengal.

Owaisi said they submitted to KCR all documents including the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs which clearly mentions that NPR is the first step towards NRC. "(Home Minister) Mr Amit Shah is misleading the country by saying that there is no link between the two," he said.

He also referred to the statements made by the government in the Parliament and the press release issued by Press Information Bureau (PIB).

Owaisi reiterated that NPR, NRC and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) all were interlinked. He said in the past when NPR was conducted, it was not linked to citizenship.

Terming the meeting with KCR as satisfactory, he exuded confidence that the Chief Minister will soon take a positive decision on their demand to stay NPR.IANS