BJP to move SC seeking re-verification of NRC data

Guwahati:  The final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) may be out in Assam, but both the central and the state BJP feel that there’s enough room for errors. Hence, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to move the Supreme Court again to re-verify select data.

According to Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam Finance Minister and BJP’s face in the northeast, the party would move the top court asking for a re-verification of 20 per cent of the sample data in the districts bordering Bangladesh. The BJP will also seek re-verification of 10 per cent of samples from the mainland of Assam. This demand will be against the draft NRC.

The draft NRC gave BJP a surprise when many from the border districts, where the population is dense, made it to the list. It was presumed that majority of them were illegal Bangladeshis.

No wonder that the spat between the BJP and Prateek Hajela, the chief coordinator of the NRC, has came out in the open.

Sarma, who’s often referred to as the Amit Shah of northeast, had said, “We have lost hope in the present form of the NRC right after the draft. When so many genuine Indians are left out, how can you claim that this document is a red letter for the Assamese society?”

In the final NRC list released on Saturday, the ones left out are mostly Bengali Hindu refugees who had come to Assam before 1971, or people who couldn’t furnish enough documents. 

Even Assam BJP President Ranjeet Kumar Dass has expressed his discontent over the final NRC List.

On Saturday, the final NRC list was released which made 30.1 million people eligible to be included, while leaving out more than 1.9 million.

Over 1.9 million people were left out of the much-awaited final NRC list, which named 30.1 million people as Indian citizens.