Guwahati: Assam BJP unit is growing anxious over speculations of a large number of majority Hindus mainly Bengali, Nepali, Hindi speakers failed to make it to the final list of Assam’s NRC with only five days left for its release.
Organisations associated with the ruling saffron party, such as the ABVP and other fringe units like the Hindu Jagran Manch are voicing its stand against the NRC and also held demonstrations across the state attempting to make awareness among people over July’s published NRC draft, the Indian Express reports.
Assam Minister and government spokesperson, Chandra Mohan Patowary speaking to a news source said: “Actually, after the final draft was published, we realised that a lot of indigenous people and genuine citizens in districts like Karbi Anglong and Dhemaji were out of the NRC whereas in certain districts where we expected the exclusion to be higher, it was not.”
Now after two months, saffron party’s senior state leaders came down harshly on the exclusion of the alleged “several lakhs of genuine Indians” and also moved the apex court seeking a re-verification of a sample of names in the NRC draft — 20 per cent in border districts and 10 per cent elsewhere.
But this was dismissed by the SC saying the NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela has conveyed to it that 27 per cent of names were already re-verified during adjunction of citizenship “claims”.
CM Sarbananda Sonowal has too defended the demand for re-verification at Independence event: “For a correct and error-free NRC, our government had appealed to the honourable Supreme Court for re-verification of the NRC update process.”
The state government, on August 1, released the district-wise exclusion data from the draft NRC published last year, and argued that three border districts of Dhubri South Salmara and Karimganj comprises of very high Muslim population that garnered less exclusion compared to districts like Tinsukia which has “sons of the soil” (Hindu population of 88.96 per cent). South Salmara is estimated to have over 95 per cent Muslims, and Dhubri and Karimganj, 79.67 per cent and 56.36 per cent, respectively according to sources.
On Hajela’s submission of 27 per cent verification, Patowary said: “We are not satisfied with that. It is the government’s duty to ensure that the name of not even one single Indian is left out and even one single foreigner included.”
He also said that of the nearly 40 lakh people excluded from the draft NRC, a little over 36 lakh have filed claims.
“If you see, around 3.8 lakh people did not file claims. We want to know who they are for two reasons. One, if they are unaware of the process, the government has to help them. Two, if they know the process and have still not applied, then they are foreigners and ought to the detected. The Supreme Court told Hajela to provide the state government with the list — he has not till date. People are unhappy because of these developments and it is our duty to raise people’s concerns,” he said.
The BJP state president Ranjit Dass has alleged that Muslim community in these districts like Dhubri and Barpeta have obtained fabricated documents for inclusion in the NRC stating these districts have 79.67 per cent and 70.74 per cent Muslim population respectively, according to Census 2011.
Dass also alleged that all the documents related to enter the NRC have been fabricated, forged to get included in the NRC by this community and that the authorities have not checked these fabricated documents with the original counterfoil at the source.
He further said the party will appeal to the state and central governments for corrective mechanisms after the publication of NRC.
State BJP secretary and Assam Gorkha Sammelan general secretary, Kishore Upadhyay, has made a strong claim regarding Bangladeshi Muslims.
“Indigenous people will be left out, and illegal Bangladeshi Muslims will be in. The desired result will not be achieved. Illegal Bangladeshis will be legalised. The NRC will be the dying declaration for the people of Assam,” he alleged.
All eyes on Citizenship Bill
The CAB is now attempting to differentiate immigrants based on religion as religion is not a criterion in the NRC updation.
It provides for granting citizenship to immigrants of six non-Muslim faiths from three countries, including Bangladesh.
The ruling saffron party is attempting to re-introduce the Citizens Bill that was previously lapsed without being introduced in Rajya Sabha this year.