Number of NRC-reject will plummet below 10 lakh: Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma

GUWAHATI: Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the number of the excluded from National Register of Citizens (NRC) would plummet below 10 lakh from over 19 lakh once their cases are disposed of by the various Foreigners’ Tribunals.

“The figure will surely go down further. I guess it will be below 10 lakh after people file appeals in the Foreigners’ Tribunals and their cases are disposed of,” Sarma told a news channel.

He said as long as the Supreme Court was not satisfied with the just-concluded process, this was not the final NRC. So, there is a window. The state government may also ask for 20 per cent re-verification in the districts bordering Bangladesh. The Supreme Court may or may not accept it, the minister said.

He slammed groups which claimed that there were 50 lakh Hindu immigrants in Assam. He was also critical of the NRC authorities for the alleged hurry in publishing the document.

“Isn’t the issue (of the Bangladeshi immigrants) lingering on for more than 50 years? I cannot understand as to why they were in such a hurry to publish the NRC,” he said.

“Ahead of the publication of the final NRC, such a situation was created where the DC (deputy commissioner or district magistrate) doesn’t trust a minister. Whenever I had a talk with a DC, he would discuss everything with me except the NRC,” Sarma said.

As it was an exercise involving lakhs of people, the government wanted to assess the law and order situation across the state. However, the DCs did not share anything on the NRC even with the superintendents of police, the minister said.

He expressed unhappiness that the NRC authorities did not take the state government into confidence.

“The state government was not taken into confidence in the entire NRC process. They were not bound by any order of the Supreme Court,” Sarma said.

He said the government had sought the 20 per cent re-verification of documents in the districts bordering Bangladesh as they witnessed an abnormal growth of population.

Attacking the NRC Assam coordinator Prateek Hajela, Sarma said, “He wasn’t chosen to head the NRC updation process by following a process of selection. As such, we all had to trust one man. Even the Election Commission is not headed by one man. It is a division bench of judges in the Supreme Court”.

As such, the names of even many locals were left out of the NRC, Sarma added.