Post Union Minister Amit Shah’s announcement of a pan-India National Register of Citizens(NRC) exercise and a fresh version of the NRC in Assam, the state Congress on November 24th, 2019 claimed that the Supreme Court-monitored citizenship identification process should not be scrapped.
“The massive NRC exercise in Assam came into force after almost 14 years of struggle. It was accepted by the Home Ministry of India and if there are any errors in the process they can be corrected instead of bringing a fresh version,” said Rajya Sabha MP Ripun Bora and former minister Rockybul Hussain while addressing a joint press conference in Guwahati on November 24th, 2019.
“The Congress is not going to support the scrapping of the present NRC,” the Congress leaders added.
It may be mentioned that the Assam government on August 31st, 2019 published the final NRC where names of 3.11 crore people were included and 19,06,657 people were excluded from the list. The Assam NRC was executed based on 1971 as the base year to determine their right to claim Indian citizenship.
While talking about the application of the 1951 NRC, the Congress said that it would only be possible after scrapping Clause 6 of the 1985 Assam Accord.
“Out of the 19 lakh names excluded from the NRC most of them are Indian citizens and the people lodged at the detention camps in the state have been denied of the human rights,” they said.
“Even Himnata Biswa Sarma knowns that 1951 NRC is not possible. The BJP has raised this as a new issue to divert the attention of common man from the legal issues of economic slowdown, unemployment and so on,” they added.
While talking about the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill, MLA Hussain said that the “bill is unconstitutional and unparliamentary and is against the people of the state,”.
Photo: Dhrubo Borah
