Senior BJP leader of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said the Assam government has decided to table the district-wise figure of Hindu Bengalis excluded from the final NRC list in the current Assembly session.
Mr. Sarma, also the State Finance Minister, claimed that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found “huge irregularities” in the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the State three years ago.
“We will make public the figure of those (excluded) Hindu Bengali people applying (to get their names included in the NRC) in different districts during the ongoing session of the Assembly,” he said.
The winter session of the State Assembly that started on Thursday will end on December 6.
“We could not give that data earlier as the NRC had not been prepared. Now we have the data with district-wise break up,” Mr. Sarma said.
It has been alleged from various quarters that a large number of Hindus have been excluded from the updated final NRC published on August 31 leaving out over 19 lakh applicants.
Addressing the media outside in the Assembly premises on the first day of the Winter Session, Sarma said the CAG had inspected the NRC office and its activities about three years ago.
“Prima facie, huge irregularities and anomalies were informed to us by the CAG. It is an official note signed by the CAG of Assam. It is not an Assam government document,” he claimed.
But, to avoid confusion among the people, the chief minister and he had decided at that time not to act on that report till the NRC is completed, the minister said.
Mr. Sarma did not reveal the sum of the alleged irregularities in the mammoth exercise to update the NRC, the final version of which was published on August 31.
