New Delhi: BJP Chief Amit Shah has yet again stirred controversy over the recently updated NRC list by calling the left out 40 lakh and more applicants as ‘ghuspethiye’(inflatrators).
This created a huge uproar and tensed the situation in Assam over the exclusion from the list for which the Apex Court’s relief seemed to be a boon to the citizens who were not included.
The coordinator for the exercise appointed by the Supreme Court said these terms to left out applicants is way too premature as per SC’s order that said no applicant will be subjected to prosecution and will be given ample time to prove his/her identity.
“No, we can’t say all these 40 lakh are ghuspethiye,” Prateek Hajela, the NRC coordinator, said in an interview with The Indian Express while responding to the question of uncertainty of these applicants.
He said that only a “judicial scrutiny” can establish whether a person can be called an illegal migrant or not and not just any leader terming them as infiltrators.
“These people will get another chance to prove their credentials. Then we will come out with a final NRC. The NRC process will be over then. Even after that, whether a person is an illegal migrant or not is something that can be decided only by judicial scrutiny and that is through a certain set of codes, which has been established in Assam… called the Foreigners Tribunal,” Hajela said.
Hajela did acknowledge that “there could be errors” in preparing the final draft list NRC, as it was completely a “manual process”. The coordinator confirmed that people left from this list will be opportunity to “object to any entry”.
“They (those in the draft) have been able to establish their credentials before us during rounds of verification that we have carried out. But again, somebody might object to any entry, which he or she thinks is not correct,” Hajela said.
Well, the coordinator’s remarks hold a great significance in the middle of a political battle between ruling party and opposition parties that has come of as a result over the updation process.
BJP president Shah on Tuesday said that the NRC was aimed at stopping illegal migration, which “has been damaging the national security of this country”.
“The NRC is for protecting human rights, the rights of Indians. The country cannot run like this. You cannot have (illegal) people from everywhere,” he had said.
Responding to him TMC chief and West Bengal CM Mamta accused the BJP party of “questioning the Indianness of Indians” who do not support NRC.
“Who are they to decide who can stay in the country and who cannot? This is a ploy to target particular communities, this is to isolate them. At this rate, there will soon be a civil war, a bloodbath,” Banerjee had said.