The Prime Minister made some statements on NRC in a rally he addressed on 22 December. Here is a fact-check on some of his statements. Addressinga rally in Ram Leela Maidan on 22 December 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modistated that there has been no discussion on NRC in his government’s tenure atthe centre. Mediaand many from the civil society were quick to point out the mention of NRC byAmit Shah and other cabinet ministers on various forums. This is one ofstatements of the Prime Minister which contradicts the statements made by himand his government earlier. Not onlyhim, various political parties and their leaders across the political spectrum havechanged their stand vis-à-vis CAA & NRC as noted in one of our earlier stories. In this story,we fact check the various claims made about NRC & CAA by the Prime Minister& others. Claim 1 : No discussion in the Government regarding NRC Duringthe speech at Ram Leela Maidan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that , therehas been no discussion in his government about NRC since he took over in 2014. Hefurther goes onto say that the NRC in Assam was implemented as per thedirection of Supreme Court. Here is the video link to this part of the speech. In spite of the claim that his government has not discussed anything relating to NRC , there have been multiple instances where members of his government as well as Bharatiya Janata party have alluded to NRC. a. The question of a nationwide NRC was asked multiple times in parliament. In their response, the government has been non-committal of carrying out NRC across the country. However,Union Home Minister Amit Shah, told the Rajya Sabha on 20 November 2019 thatNRC would be carried across pan-India. The Bharatiya Janata Party on its officialTwitter handle tweeted his statement made in the Rajya Sabha. b. Furthermore, addressing an election rally in Jharkhand ahead of the second phase of State elections, Amit Shah stated that NRC would be implemented to remove all the infiltrators from the country and this would be done prior to 2024 General elections. Here is a video link to that part of speech at the election rally. c. TheBJP also tweeted on 11 April 2019, an excerpt from Amit Shah’s speech , which stated that NRCwould be implemented in the entire country. The tweet further states that allthe infiltrators except for Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists would be removed fromthe country. This tweet is deleted from their twitter account. Factly was ableto retrieved it from the web archives. TheBJP’s manifesto for 2019 elections, states that NRC would be implemented in a phased manner inother parts of the country. This is stated under the head ‘CombatingInfiltration’ on Page 11 of the manifesto. BJP’sworking president JP Nadda has on 19 December 2019 stated that Citizenship Law will be implemented as well as NRCwould be brought in. He made this statement at an event where he met refugeesfrom Afghanistan. Here is a video link to that statement. Hence,there have been multiple instances where in BJP officially and the cabinetministers referred to the implementation of NRC across the country. PM’s claimthat NRC was not discussed by his government also does not stand true sinceHome Minister Amit Shah has gone on record in Rajya Sabha saying that anationwide NRC would be implemented. To conclude, the PM’s statement that NRCwas never discussed by his government is misleading. Claim: NRC was never discussed by his government since I took over as PM in 2014 – PM Narendra Modi Fact: On multiple occasions, BJP leaders as well as Cabinet Ministers referred to a nationwide NRC. Hence, the claim of PM Narendra Modi is Misleading. Claim 2: There are no detention centres Multipletimes during his speech on 22 December 2019, PM Narendra Modi claimed thatthere were no detention centres and that this is a lie which is beingpropagated by the opposition, specifically Indian National Congress. Here is the video link to the statementgiven by Narendra Modi. Furthermore,in an interview to ANI, Amit Shah states that they have not created any newdetention centers under the their government. On27November 2019, Dr. Santanu Sen asked a question in Rajya Sabha aboutthe lack of facilities in detention centres. Respondingto this question, the government stated that as per the information provided by State Government of Assam, there are 6Detention Centres in Assam as on 22 November 2019 and that 988 foreigners arelodged in them. Thisis contrary to the PM’s statement that there are no detention centres in thecountry. EvenAmit Shah’s statement that there are no new detention centres, doesn’t matchwith the answers provided by the government in parliament. These answers providea completely different picture.