GUWAHATI: The
Election Commission of India (
ECI) on Tuesday formally said that names of
NRC rejects will not be removed from the voters’ list and they will continue to enjoy their voting rights when the state goes to the polls in the next few months.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)
Sunil Arora, after winding up the full commission’s review of the preparedness of the assembly election in the state here, said, “Non-inclusion of a person’s name in the
NRC by itself does not amount to he or she being declared as a foreigner. By implication, such persons remain in the voters list and shall be eligible to vote unless a decision is taken by the tribunals concerned.”
Over 19 lakh people were left out of the NRC published on August 31, 2019. As provided in the NRC rules, those excluded will have the scope to claim citizenship in Foreigners’ Tribunals. But the process is yet to start even after the lapse of more than a year.
The commission on Monday published the revised electoral roll for the state with a total electorate of 2,29,92,505. The increase in the number of voters is 2% over the electorate size of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
In the state, only those voters who have been marked as ‘D’ or doubtful voters by the
Election Commission are barred from voting until their names are cleared as Indian citizens by foreigner’s tribunals. The commission first started applying ‘D’ against names of doubtful citizens in 1997.
The ‘D’ marking is a temporary arrangement and the total number of such voters has come down from 3.5 lakh in 1997 to about 1.3 lakh at present after getting clearance from foreigners’ tribunals. Doubtful voters are also not eligible to contest elections.
The EC’s formal announcement lays to rest speculations that those not included in the NRC will be disenfranchised and also cease to be beneficiaries of government schemes.