Members of Parliament from Kerala backed the government’s decision not to cooperate with work related to the National Population Register (NPR).

The MPs expressed their solidarity with the government at a meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday. The decision is to cooperate with the procedures of Census but not that for the NPR.

In the meeting, Pinarayi said that steps will be taken for the political parties as well as for the public not to confuse the procedures of the Census and NPR updation. The meeting was convened ahead of the budget session of parliament. 

Kerala, is the second state after West Bengal to declare that works related to NPR will be stalled in the wake of apprehensions that the data collected for NPR would be used to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Left government headed by the CPI(M) in a cabinet meeting on January 20, had informed the Centre that the state will not be updating the NPR. 

The cabinet had also decided to inform the Registrar General and Census Commissioner that the state will stay away from updating and renewing the NPR. But the government had made it clear that it will cooperate to carry out work related to the Census.

The NPR is a register of residents in the country containing demographic and biometric details, while the Census is a population exercise conducted once in a decade.

The Central Committee meeting of the CPI(M) that was held in Thiruvananthapuram from January 17 to 19, had decided to conduct a nationwide house-to-house campaign asking people not to provide details for NPR.

Kerala is also the first state in the country to move the Supreme Court against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The state Assembly has passed a resolution against the controversial legislation.