NRC decision shows Modi govt against SC decision: Debabrata Saikia

GUWAHATI: Leader of opposition in Assam assembly Debabrata Saikia said Union home Minister Amit Shah’s announcement about a fresh NRC update in Assam indicates that Narendra Modi led government is unwilling to accept the decision of the Supreme Court.
Saikia said Shah announced in the Rajya Sabha update that process will be carried out afresh in Assam concurrently with the rest of India. Not even three months have elapsed since the final updated NRC was published in Assam under the supervision of the Supreme Court and, significantly, the apex court has accepted the validity of the final NRC.

He added that NRC was updated in Assam by engaging over 50,000 employees of the state government and spending over Rs. 1200 crore of tax-payers’ money. Around 3.29 crore inhabitants of Assam went through a great deal of trouble to collect documentation and participate in the process.

“Some people had to part with livestock and even property in order to prove their citizenship. Yet others had to travel up to 600 kilometers to previously unseen places to attend NRC hearings in the final phase. A few persons lost their lives during such journeys," Saikia said.

He said that Modi government wants to carry out the NRC update process without supervision of the Supreme Court so that a section of genuine citizens from the religious minority community can be excluded and a section of illegal migrants from the linguistic minority community can be inducted in the NRC. The BJP wants to keep the NRC issue simmering in order to further its agenda of polarization along religious lines.

Saikia said the BJP wants to use the nation-wide NRC as its new weapon for the political polarization. "I would like to appeal to the Supreme Court not to allow the Modi government to carry out another NRC update exercise in Assam only a brief interval after completion of a lengthy process for the same purpose. Otherwise, over three crore residents of Assam will face renewed harassment in the name of proving their citizenship."

He added, “I would also like to urge the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) to strongly oppose the move of the Modi government. The NRC has been updated on the basis of the cut-off deadline of 1971 stipulated in the Assam Accord of 1985, to which the AASU was a signatory..”