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Congress cautions Centre on Assam NRC, worried over citizenship bill
While most neighbouring units of the Congress support the NRC exercise in Assam, with some demanding for a similar drill in their own states, it is the rival Bharatiya Janata Party’s push for the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) that they are wary of.
With a day left for the publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Congress party has cautioned the Centre about oversights in the list and expressed concerns over another bill to grant citizenships to illegal migrants.
While most neighbouring units of the Congress support the NRC exercise in Assam, with some demanding for a similar drill in their own states, it is the rival Bharatiya Janata Party’s push for the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) that they are wary of.
The bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, to allow undocumented individuals from the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, to be eligible for citizenship in India after living here for six years. Currently, a person has to have lived in India for 12 years to apply for citizenship.
The BJP’s attempts to bring in the bill in Parliament earlier this year was greeted by angry protests across all states in the northeast, with some of its political allies breaking away.
Congress Assam unit president Ripun Bora said that while the party’s stated position is that it supports NRC, the oversights in the list should be the Assam government’s responsibility.
“We expect a clean NRC where no genuine Indian’s name is excluded and in which a non-Indian’s name is not included. The Assam government had ample time to prepare for this,” said Bora.
The process to update the register began under the Congress government led by former chief minister Tarun Gogoi following a Supreme Court order in 2013, with the state’s nearly 33 million people having to prove that they were Indian nationals prior to March 24, 1971. A draft of NRC left out 4.1 million from among these applicants and the final list has been ordered to be disclosed on August 31.
The NRC, first prepared countrywide in 1951, is being updated in Assam after years of indigenous agitation to identify undocumented individuals, who might have crossed over from neighbouring Bangladesh. The NRC includes the names of people and those of their descendants that appeared in the 1951 NRC, in the electoral rolls up to March 24, 1971, or in any official document which is permitted.
Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee president Pradyot Deb Barma, who has been demanding NRC in his state, is now travelling with a delegate of indigenous people to Delhi to demand better rights for the Tiprasas.
“The NRC is needed, especially in a state like ours, where the indigenous population has declined over the decades. But we are also quite clear that there is no place for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the region,” said Deb Barma.
He is leading a delegation of over 500 Tiprasas to Delhi to ask for greater autonomy and direct funding of the Autonomous Development Councils by the Centre and for the inclusion of the local Kokborok language in curriculums of government schools in the state.
Senior Congress leader and former president of its Manipur unit TN Haokip said they fear that the Centre might attempt to pass the CAB, despite stiff opposition locally.
“Our concern is that the government might try to pass the bill, like the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. We are keenly watching the government’s intention on the bill,” said Haokip, adding that it will become untenable for local leaders to stay with any national party.
Meghalaya Congress president Celestine Lyngdoh said their immediate concern is that those who do not find their names in NRC in Assam might try to cross over to other states overnight.
“The government should take care that there is no influx or flow of people who are not entertained in Assam should. We expect the Meghalaya government to take care of that,” said Lyngdoh.
He, too, said the Centre’s position on CAB is being keenly watched.
