Present Format of NRC Cannot be Handed Over to the People: BJP Chief Ranjit Dass

GUWAHATI: Assam BJP president Ranjit Kumar Dass on January 1 said that NRC (National Register of Citizens) in the present format cannot be handed over to the people of Assam.

Talking to media the party chief said that owing to legal tangle, BJP-led state government failed to complete the NRC process.

"We have fulfilled most of the assurances made in the run-up to the 2016 assembly polls. However, in some aspects, we could not fulfill our promise," he added.

Dass further stated, "We do not want NRC in the present format to be handed over to the people of Assam. NRC incurred around ₹1,600 crore expense. However, lakhs of Indian citizens have been excluded and several illegal immigrants, using fake documents, got included in NRC. If a single Indian's name is not there, this is not acceptable."

Earlier the BJP-led Assam government said that they do not trust the updated National Register of Citizens, specifically prepared for Assam, and appealed to the central and the state governments to prepare a nationwide NRC.

BJP Assam President Ranjeet Kumar Dass said that the final NRC contains a very small figure of exclusions compared to officially stated figures earlier. 

"We do not trust this NRC... We are very unhappy...We appeal to the central and the state governments to prepare a national level NRC," he added.

Dass said that the party will keep a close watch on the process of appeal in the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) by the excluded persons and the judgements of the cases.

"If we see that FTs are delivering adverse judgements on the appeals by genuine Indian citizens, we will not wait for the entire 19 lakh cases to be disposed-off. We will bring in legislation and make an act to protect them," he asserted.

The office of the NRC coordinator said that out of 3.3 crore applicants, 3.11 crore were added to the list. More than 19 lakh people have been excluded. This includes people who did not submit claims after the last draft was published.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is the register containing names of Indian Citizens. The only time that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) was prepared was in 1951 when after the conduct of the Census of 1951, the NRC was prepared by recording particulars of all the persons enumerated during that Census.

The NRC will be now updated to include the names of those persons (or their descendants) who appear in the NRC, 1951, or in any of the Electoral Rolls up to the midnight of 24th March, 1971 or in any one of the other admissible documents issued up to midnight of 24th March, 1971, which would prove their presence in Assam or in any part of India on or before 24th March, 1971.

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