The state government’s decision to reject the current National Register of Citizens (NRC) and be a part of the national NRC has evoked mixed response in Assam’s Bengali-dominated Barak Valley.
Union home minister Amit Shah had said in Parliament recently that the NRC would be implemented nationwide. Reacting to this, Assam minister and the BJP’s chief strategist in the Northeast, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said the current NRC process in the state should be scrapped and that Assam wanted to be part of the national NRC process.
Subhranshu Shekhar Bhattacharya, a member of the North East Linguistic and Ethnic Co-Ordination Committee (NELECC), told The Telegraph over phone on Friday that it was claimed earlier that the NRC would be error-free, but that was not the case. The NRC was full of errors with bona fide Indian citizens being left out and foreigners being included, he alleged.
He said they supported the decision of rejecting the current NRC and preparing it in sync with the rest of the country.
Basudeb Sharma, the president of the All Assam Bengali Hindu Association (AABHA), echoed Bhattacharya and said the NRC had lots of mistakes. Genuine citizens have been left out, whereas illegal immigrants have made it to the list, he alleged. “Those left out of the NRC can settle anywhere in the country. A pan-India NRC is needed to solve this problem,” he said.
He added that the government should provide security to Hindus without any conditions.Pradip Dutta Roy, the founder-president of the All Cachar Karimganj Hailakandi Students’ Association (ACKHSA), also claimed the absence of genuine citizens’ names and the presence of foreigners’ names in the NRC.
He alleged that Bengalis, especially Bengali Hindus, had been targeted through the process.
Some organisations, however, expressed disapproval at the government’s plan of dismissing the current NRC and said a new register would mean waste of money and a rerun of sufferings.
Sadhan Purkayastha, the secretary general of the Citizens’ Rights Preservation Committee (CRPC), said crores of rupees had been spent on the mega exercise and people suffered unimaginably in the process.
Gautam Dutta, the general secretary of the Barak Upatyaka Banga Sahitya O Sanskritik Sammelan, said people had already “suffered horrifically” because of the process and another NRC preparation would shove them in one more “sea of sufferings”.
Seram Herajit Singha, the general secretary of the Assam Indigenous People’s Protection Forum, said they were strongly against the idea of a new NRC.