61 members of the House don't have birth certificates: Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: At the one-day special session, which was held to discuss the NPR and the NRC, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal requested the Centre to withdraw them.

"Me, my wife, my entire cabinet don't have birth certificates to prove citizenship. Will we be sent to detention centres?" Kejriwal asked.

The chief minister challenged Union ministers to show whether they had birth certificates issued by the government.

In the Assembly, Kejriwal asked the MLAs to raise their hands if they had birth certificates, following which only nine legislators in the 70-member House raised their hands.

"Sixty-one members of the House do not have birth certificates," he said. "Will they be sent to detention centres?"

Raghav Chadha talked about how BJP government is trying to enforce a backdoor NRC through NPR which will put 90% of citizens as "Doubtful" and push them to detention centres.

"We must stop it's implementation across the nation," he said.

Chadha said, "BJP says that Aadhar card,Ration card,Voter Id card,Passport etc shall not be considered as proof for citizenship. If citizenship will be tested only on the basis of birth certificate then most of the people of our country will have to go to Detention Centers."

Earlier in the day, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel suspended BJP MLA Vijender Gupta from attending the remaining Assembly proceedings for the day after the latter refused to take back his allegedly derogatory remarks against the ruling AAP in connection with the communal violence in northeast Delhi.

Aam Aadmi Party legislators demanded an apology from Gupta but the

Rohini MLA did not relent. Following protests by AAP legislators, Goel asked Gupta to take back his words but the latter refused.

Gupta was then suspended from the rest of the proceedings of the day.