Guwahati: Within hours of Union home minister Amit Shah announcing that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be held for the entire country, Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday said the state government has requested the Centre to reject the recently published NRC.
Senior BJP leader Sarma told the reporters that even his party has urged the minster to dismiss the NRC in its current form.
“The Assam government has not accepted the NRC. Government of Assam and the BJP have requested the home minister to reject the NRC,” he added.
The NRC exercise took place following a Supreme Court order in December 2014 for a time-bound preparation, and thereafter under the court’s direct monitoring.
Sarma said that the state government favoured one national NRC with one cut-off year for the entire country.
Sarma said that the current NRC could not be accepted by the state government because it was erroneous and had wrongful exclusions and inclusions.
“The state government cannot accept this NRC. People who should not have been included in the list have made it, while those who should have in have been excluded,” Sarma said.
“Cut off for entire country should be same — there should not be two cut-off dates,” he said adding, “If the cut-off year is 1971 for Assam, then it should be the same for all states. We are not asking to scrap the Assam Accord,” he clarified.
He also criticised former NRC state coordinator, Prateek Hajela.The minister alleged that the entire exercise of updation was carried out keeping aside the state government.
“But the entire nation thinks that NRC was updated by the Assam government. We are bearing the brunt because of one individual. We are concerned about the flaws in the system. The way Hajela ran the show under a different eco-system, it has created a multiple layer of questions. As a public representative, we are unable to answer them now,” Sarma said.
Hajela, an IAS officer, has since been transferred to his home state Madhya Pradesh on the direction of the Supreme Court under whose supervision the NRC was updated.
An Assam Civil Service officer Hitesh Dev Sarma has been appointed in his place.
The Assam minister said the state government will provide legal aid to genuine Indian citizens contesting their exclusion from the NRC in Foreigners Tribunals.
Over 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC, and the Assam
government and several political parties have claimed many of them were bonafide Indian citizens.
