After the debate, Tejashwi Yadav and other RJD lawmakers went to meet Nitish Kumar
An unusual collaboration between Nitish Kumar and the Tejashwi Yadav-led opposition saw a unanimous Bihar assembly resolution on Tuesday urging the centre to make changes to the National Population Register (NPR) and scrap plans for a National Register for Citizens (NRC).
During a fiery debate on the controversial citizenship law CAA, NRC and NPR, Nitish Kumar, the BJP's Bihar ally, said his government had written to the centre asking for "additional clauses" in NPR forms to be dropped and the version used in 2010 to be restored.
The new, changed version could be used as a basis to target people through the NRC, the Chief Minister agreed.
Replying to the debate in the Bihar assembly initiated by Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, Nitish Kumar said there should be "no confusion" regarding how the NPR exercise would be carried out in the state and asserted that nobody would be asked to furnish information like their parents' birthplace.
The Chief Minister read out the text of his letter to the centre asking for changes to the NPR forms. The Bihar government had also suggested that "transgenders" be included in the gender column, said Mr Kumar.
Mr Kumar reiterated that there would be no NRC in Bihar. He criticized what he called the bogey of NRC being raised by the opposition despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's categorical statement that a countrywide implementation of the citizen's list was not on the cards.
After the debate, Tejashwi Yadav and other RJD lawmakers went to meet Mr Kumar, after which the Chief Minister called the Speaker and requested him to take up the subject once again after lunch. As the debate resumed, the BJP appeared to have been caught off guard.
Mr Kumar, who faces an election in Bihar later this year, has faced a tough balancing act on the NRC and the citizenship law, which have provoked protests across the country. So far, he has avoided any confrontation with ally BJP, which is firm on implementing the CAA.
Protests against the NRC, an exercise to identify illegal migrants, have intensified in relation with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA, a law that helps non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan become Indian citizens if they fled religious persecution and entered India before 2015.
Critics of the CAA fear that along with the NRC, the law will become a tool against undocumented Muslims.
Many states not ruled by the BJP have scrapped the NPR, objecting to changes like questions on one's parents' birthplace and suspecting that the exercise will be used to prepare the stage for the NRC.
Chaos in the Bihar assembly over CAA and NRC forced an adjournment of the house for some time. Since the house assembled, Tejashwi Yadav had attacked Nitish Kumar and accused him of misleading people on NPR.
Terming the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and NPR "black laws", he said that the new constitutional Acts are dividing the country.