Another NRC in Assam with rest of India: Shah

State govt ‘rejects’ current list; home minister says people shouldn’t worry

NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI: UNION home minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday that a National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be created for all regions in India, expanding an exercise that was recently carried out in Assam and led to the identification of 1.9 million people who now face the risk of being labelled illegal immigrants.

Shah also said that the NRC exercise in Assam was carried out after a Supreme Court order and when the pan-india process is conducted, the northeastern state would be covered afresh.

The home minister’s statement came in response to a question by a Rajya Sabha member, and represents the first confirmation of a plan that has previously been spoken about by ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders during campaign speeches.

“The process of NRC will be carried out across the country. No one irrespective of their religion should be worried as it’s just a process to get everyone under the NRC,” Shah said.

On August 31, the NRC was published in Assam after a decades-long anti-foreigner campaign. The process, aimed at identifying and weeding out illegal immigrants, began under the Supreme Court’s oversight in 2015 and cost approximately ₹1,300 crore. The final list left out 1.9 million from the 32.9 million applicants.

The minister added that people from all religions who were Indian citizens would be included and there was no provision to leave anyone out on the basis of religion. “There is no question of any discrimination on the basis of religion. NRC is a different process and the Citizenship Amendment Bill is different,” he said, referring to a separate law that seeks to give citizenship to minorities from neighbouring Muslimmajority nations.

The government plans to amend the Citizenship Act in the Winter Session of Parliament.

“Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain,

Christian, Parsi refugees should get citizenship. The Citizenship Amendment Bill is needed so that these refugees who are being discriminated on basis of religion in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, get Indian citizenship,” Shah said.

The declaration came at a time when the Bjp-ruled government in Assam has opposed NRC, alleging that the exercise was carried out without any involvement of the administration and that the final list potentially includes names of people who are not eligible. “The Assam government has not accepted the NRC. The Government of Assam and the BJP have requested the home minister to reject the NRC,” Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference in Guwahati. Sarma said the state favoured one national NRC with one cut-off year for the entire country. “If the cut-off year is 1971, then it should be the same for all states... We are not asking to scrap the Assam Accord,” he added. Sarma also hit out at NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela. “The way Hajela ran the show under a different ecosystem, it has created a multiple layer of questions. As a public representative, we are unable to answer them now,” Sarma said.