Assam CM Himanta Sarma calls for fresh NRC list, holds discussion with AASU

Restarting discussions on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said the NRC should be done afresh. Calling for a fresh exercise, Sarma said that the list must be reviewed in order to collate citizenship data rather than just partially verifying rolls. Assam Agriculture Minister Atul Bora also informed that the state is set to approach the Supreme Court seeking orders to re-verify the NRC data that was originally published in 2019.  

CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday backed the call to redo the NRC verification and said that the government was in discussions with groups over the same. “We had said earlier also that the National Register of Citizens should be reviewed and done afresh. Our discussion with the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) is going on,” he told the media in Guwahati after attending a youth programme.

Earlier on Thursday, Assam Minister Atul Bora had said that the state government has decided to move the apex court over the reviewing of the list. “The decision was taken during the meeting held with the AASU and other indigenous organizations. We won’t accept the list of NRC which was published in August 2019. Now we have decided to move the Supreme Court by seeking re-verification,” Bora told ANI.

The government had held a meeting with the AASU leadership over the implementation of the Assam Accord last week. Following this, Samujjal Bhattacharya, Advisor of AASU had come forward to claim that many illegal Bangladeshi people’s names were included in the last list which needed to be reviewed. “So we want that, re-verification of the NRC list should be made. We have already filed a petition before the Supreme Court by seeking this. We urge both Centre and State that, they should also move the Supreme Court for a correct NRC,” Dr Bhattacharya had said.

Assam's first NRC list

On August 31, 2019, the NRC state coordinator's office released the final NRC list. 3,11,21,004 Assam residents were found eligible, while 19,06,657 Assam residents were marked as ineligible. The exclusion includes the number of people who did not submit their papers to the NRC authorities. The 19 lakh exclusion is a major decrease from the over 40 lakh excluded in the second draft published in July 2018. 

Due to the COVID-19 breakout, Assam's NRC officials did not issue official notice rejecting the excluded population's citizenship, thus impeding these 19 lakh individuals to approach govt-appointed 'foreigners' tribunals to challenge the final list. The final list had disappointed BJP and left most Bengali residents aghast. Himanta Biswa Sarma had then alleged that over 5 lakh Hindu Bengalis were excluded from the list and that they would be given citizenship by the state by 2021.

Reports had estimated that of the 19 lakh excluded -7 lakh were Muslims, which led to Assam BJP, AASU opposing the process, which also lead to violent protests. Moreover, the BJP has batted for a nationwide NRC which was vehemently opposed by most states.

(With ANI inputs)

Image: PTI