Bora evasive on rejection of APCC's move on 'OI'?

GUWAHATI, Nov 4: Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Ripun Bora was found to be evasive on Saturday on the issue of NRC update when the report that came up in a section of media, including The Sentinel, that the Congress and AAMSU’s pleas for deletion of the Remark Column of Origil Inhabitants (OI) during verification of NRC applications had been rejected by the panel of retired judges of the Gauhati High Court.

On Saturday when the media wanted to know as to why the Opposition party in the State wants to rake up the issue of ‘OI’ that was rejected by the panel of HC judges, Bora was found to be evasive when he gave a curt reply, “I don’t know it as I wasn’t the APCC president at that time. It’s news to me till this morning when I saw a report in this regard in the media.”  However, the fact remains that Bora was a front-running Congress leader in 2015 when the Congress moved the panel with the plea. In its plea to the panel, the Congress wanted deletion of columns ‘OI’, ‘D voters’ and ‘DF (declared foreigners) during verification of NRC applications.   Bora, however, said that the BJP government at Dispur has slowed down the pace of the NRC work that was maintained by the Congress Government in the State, besides pushing the issue towards a debate.

Bora said: “NRC update doesn’t have any mention in the Assam Accord. It was a demand from the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU). The AGP failed to do anything worthwhile to meet the demand while in power. In 2005 during a tripartite talk the decision for NRC update was taken and a pilot project for NRC update was taken up in Barpeta and Chhaygaon in 2010. However, a section of people created disturbances, putting a halt to the NRC update work.  The Supreme Court had to intervene into the issue and ordered that NRC update would be carried out under its supervision. The then Congress Government in the State speeded up its work towards that end and pushed it up to an advanced state. However, then came the BJP at Dispur and slowed down the exercise, besides pushing it to a debate. Our stand on NRC update is crystal clear – we don’t want inclusion of any illegal Bangladeshi in the NRC nor do we want exclusion of any genuine Indian from it.”