The first day of the autumn session of the Assam Legislative Assembly started with a noisy note with both ruling and Opposition legislators raising voice of concern over the issue of recently-declared draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
BJP legislator, Shiladitya Dev raised his voice of concern over the issue by showing a placard which read “My Lord do not discriminate your own children”. Dev explained that he was referring to the recent decision of the apex court to drop five documents from the list of documents for filing claims and objections and said that it is discrimination.
It may be mentioned here that the process of claims and objection for inclusion of names in the NRC will commence from September 25. A total of 40,07,707 people were left out of the draft NRC published by the Assam government in August this year.
State NRC coordinator Pratik Hajela had earlier proposed to the Supreme Court to bring down the list of documents from 15 to 10 for those calming for inclusion in the NRC. The five documents that proposed to be dropped were the 1951 NRC, pre-1971 voters’ lists, citizenship certificate, refugee registration certificate and ration cards (as supporting documents).
“The idea of NRC updation is to weed out illegal immigrant and ensure that genuine Indian citizen’s names are there in NRC. The court has asked Hajela not to give any details to any one in Centre or State Government and this is unfortunate,”Dev said.
He added, “As a MLA we are supposed to know some details from NRC Department so that we can explain to people. Is there something wrong in NRC, is NRC transparent?. Tomorrow if NRC fails what will happen there will be law and order problem. What is the point of keeping away the Centre and state government from the NRC process.”
“Till now NRC directorate has not been able to do mapping and cannot say with precision what is percentage of left out in each district. If 1951 NRC is not acceptable as a document for claim and objection what purpose will the NRC of 2018 serve?” he asked.
Nearly 14 organizations participated in a protest outside assembly demanding ouster of Hajela.
BJP State president Ranjeet Kumar Das along with MLAs Shiladitya and Ashok Singhal met the agitating organisations. “We have met Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh and requested him file affidavit in Supreme Court against Hajela’s proposal,” Dass said.
“We met Assam chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal requesting him to file affidavit and accordingly state government filed affidavit in the Supreme Court. The State Government has also requested the Supreme court to consider pension slip as one of the documents,” he said.
Inside the assembly the congress MLA, Abdul Khaleque sought ouster of Hajela. Industry Minister, Chandra Mohan Patwary replied that both Centre and State Government has stated that details of NRC must be shared with both Centre and State as it is a sensitive matter and law and order is State subject. “We are clear that not a single genuine Indian citizen name will be left out of NRC and ensure that there is not a single illegal immigrants name in NRC.”
