Gogoi has no moral right to speak on NRC: BJP

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 4: The BJP Assam Pradesh has hit back at former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on his outbursts on NRC update, and said that Gogoi has no moral right to speak on NRC as his government had only played politics on the issue for the past 15 years. The BJP said that the Gogoi Government had not even allowed the NRC plot project in Barpeta to take place.

In a statement issued to the press today, State BJP spokesperson Subash Dutta said: "In order to draw rrow political mileage out of it, Tarun Gogoi did hatch a conspiracy to leave NRC update work in a logjam. Even on the pretext of disturb law-and-order situation in Barpeta after the NRC pilot project related violence, Gogoi even stopped the NRC update work. Only for political mileage, the Gogoi government did form a Cabinet sub-committee headed by then minister Bhumidhar Barman. It was this committee that permitted panchayat secretaries to issue citizenship-related certificates. However, panchayat secretaries aren't constitutiolly competent to issue such certificates.  Gogoi did all these only to keep his illegal Bangladeshi vote bank intact. He has no moral right to criticize Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal who has been very sincere in the update of NRC. Gogoi as the Chief Minister of the State never did NRC update work sincerely. The work got its speed in the past nine months after Sonowal-led BJP coming to power in the State. Sonowal has made it in no uncertain terms that in order to ensure an error-free NRC, each and every NRC document will be scrutinized thoroughly. NRC update work is under at the directive of the Supreme Court. Assam is the only State in the country where NRC is being updated at the directive of the apex court, and as such it has to be an error-free document. There shouldn't be any politics on this matter. The Government is committed to update an error-free NRC for the State. Gogoi is criticizing the government only to protect those for whose protection he had formed a Cabinet sub-committee leading to the permission given to panchayat secretaries to issue citizenship-related certificates."