Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan has slammed the Census 2027 questionnaire that reportedly seeks information on religion and place of birth of both parents, saying that the Union government is trying to include the National Population Register (NPR) in the Census work.

Mr. Vijayan, in a Facebook post, said any policy that links religion with citizenship is unacceptable. “Although the Census and NPR are separate, the Centre is trying to include NPR in the Census. The Home Ministry report of 2018-19 had made it clear that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is prepared by filtering data from the NPR and that NPR is a preparatory step for NRC,” he said, urging the Union government to remove such “sinister queries” from the population enumeration questionnaire of Census 2027. The population enumeration stage of Census 2027 will be held in Kerala in February 2027.

Mr. Vijayan recalled that the Keralam government had issued a fresh order during the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) tenure reaffirming that the NPR would not be implemented in the State under any circumstances. Mr. Vijayan called upon the secular sections of society to resist attempts by the Sangh Parivar to target “a particular section of society.”

‘First by UPA’

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] veteran also termed it a matter of concern that the UDF government in Keralam was silent on the issue. “The reason is that the Congress’s hands are not clean when it comes to NPR. Although it was through the Citizenship Act amendment by the Vajpayee government that the NRC and NPR were introduced, it was first implemented by the UPA government in 2010,” he alleged.

The UDF government has adhered to a policy of implementing the political agenda of the Centre one after the other. The State should remain alert as to whether it would display the same “subservience” in this matter too, Mr. Vijayan said.

Published - August 19, 2026 06:57 pm IST