As Karnataka assembly election nears, NRC returns to BJP syllabus

The Karnataka assembly election marks the BJP’s return to its core agenda, with its manifesto promising to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to identify and deport illegal immigrants in the state and setting up a committee to study the uniform civil code (UCC). 

The BJP’s harking back to the controversial NRC, which it had put on the back burner after anti-CAA-NRC protests of 2019, is likely to persist until the next round of assembly polls in Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, which are likely to be as challenging for the party as Karnataka. The results of these assembly polls would decide, say Sangh Parivar sources, whether the NRC issue gets into the BJP’s manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. 

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has called for a nationwide NRC after the BJP manifesto release on Monday. The NRC had briefly returned during the Assam assembly polls in the summer of 2021, where the BJP committed itself to a “corrected” NRC exercise.

In the first session of Parliament after the 2019 elections, Parliament made instant triple talaq illegal and invalidated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

Whether the BJP returns to the remainder of its core agenda, such as implementing a UCC and NRC, can be gleaned from the May 28, 1996 speech of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He explained to the Lok Sabha that his 13-day government dropped references to the Ram temple, Article 370 and UCC since it lacked a majority, suggesting that the time was inopportune. “Ye hamare iss samay ke karyakram mein nahin hai…aur isliye nahin hai ki hamare pass bahumat nahin hai...Koi chhupane ki baat nahin hai," he said.