MHA refutes reports of meeting with INPT for implementing NRC in Tripura

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday refuted reports of a meeting between Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh discussing the implementation of National Register of Citizens of India (NRC) in Tripura.

Terming such reports as "absolutely incorrect and mischievous", news agency ANI quoting MHA said, "News reports have appeared to the effect that a delegation of Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), after a meeting with Union Home Minister, has claimed that NRC is likely to be implemented in Tripura. These reports are absolutely incorrect and mischievous."

Earlier on October 1, several news reports claimed that Singh has convened a meeting with INPT on NRC for the northeastern state, scheduled to be held on October 4 in Delhi.

The meeting was seen to be as a follow-up by the MHA after the IPFT submitted memoranda to President Ramnath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in August demanding NRC in Tripura, they added.

"We have got an official invitation to attend a meeting with the union home minister on NRC in Tripura with 1951 as the cut off date in his office at the North Block, New Delhi, on October 4," INPT general secretary Jagadish Debbarma had said.

INPT president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhwal and Debbarma himself would participate in the meeting on NRC, he had said. They will highlight the problem of infiltration in Tripura, which shares 856 km international border with Bangladesh, Debbarma said adding that the party would continue to stick to its core demand for NRC with 1951 as the cut off year.

There should not be any discrimination among genuine citizens but those who had infiltrated to the border state after 1951 must be identified through NRC, he had said.

Debbarma said INPT delegates had visited the national capital in August to meet the president, the prime minister and the union home minister but could not. "We had returned after leaving a memorandum to them seeking NRC in Tripura with a cut off year 1951. Now, we will request Rajnathji to undertake NRC in Tripura to protest the legitimate rights of indigenous people, he had added.