New Delhi: DMK MPs today met President Ram Nath Kovind and handed over the copies of the anti-CAA signature campaign that the party conducted in Tamilnadu. The team comprising of MPs T R Baalu, Kanimozhi and Vaiko met the President.
The anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) signature campaign by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies have garnered more than two-crore signatures.
DMK chief M K Stalin, as well as leaders of their allied parties, unveiled boxes of the collected signatures in front of the party headquarters in Chennai on Saturday. The signature petitions were addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind.
The anti-CAA signature drive was launched across the State on 2 February with a target to get one crore signatures. Stalin last week thanked his party workers and cadres of alliance parties for ”active” participation in the ”one crore signature campaign” against the CAA, NPR and National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said, ”as expected, it has turned into a people’s movement and so far it has seen over two crore signatures.”
The DMK chief, who is also the leader of opposition in Tamilnadu, said the battle against the CAA will be taken forward if the Centre failed to reconsider its stand even after seeing the response to its signature campaign.
According to the Home Ministry, the NPR is a register of usual residents of the country. A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
It’s objective is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars.
The government has defended NPR, saying it was being updated to allow the rightful beneficiaries get the benefit of welfare schemes.