Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that “genuine Indians” left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) should not worry while included “foreigners” should not rejoice as long as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were around.
“I want to make it clear that nothing is final till the Prime Minister and the Home Minister are around. Nobody should say the last word till the names of foreigners are excluded from the NRC and the genuine Indians included,” Mr. Sarma told a local TV channel on Monday evening.
The NRC, aimed at identifying illegal immigrants, was published on Saturday after five years of being monitored by the Supreme Court. More than 19 lakh out of the total of 3.3 crore applicants were excluded from the NRC.
Mr. Sarma, however, did not specify how Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah would come to the rescue of the “genuine Indians”, specifically non-Muslims, and show the foreigners the doors.
Seeking a joint effort for addressing the anomalies in the final NRC, he appealed to the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the Assam Public Works (APW) to approach the Supreme Court with the same plea for re-verification of documents,
Both the AASU, which had first demanded the updating of the NRC in 1980, and APW, whose petition in the apex court in 2009 led to the exercise being undertaken, were disappointed with the final list as they had expected the exclusion figure to be at least double that of the 19 lakh.
The State Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, said Mr. Shah is scheduled to visit Assam on September 8 and 9 for a meeting of the North Eastern Council. He is likely to also review the security scenario in Assam following the publication of the final NRC.
