Guwahati: Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) has stumbled upon yet another controversy. An affidavit submitted before the Gauhati High Court recently by the NRC authorities clearly mentioned that the names of some illegal immigrants have been included in the much-hyped document, which was updated and published in August last year, a mega exercise that witnessed spending of an estimated Rs 1200 crore and engaging over 55000 state government employees.
Although the present NRC Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma refused to make any comment over the issues due to the Supreme court's directive, it was learnt that the affidavit submitted in the Gauhati High Court stated that at least 4,795 persons, who were not listed in NRC, could, however, enter their names in the document.
NRC officials on condition of anonymity said that the NRC authorities have conducted verification again on 10,119 names from the final NRC that was published in August 2019. The verification was again conducted as per the instruction of the Gauhati High court. During the verification of 10,119 names, it was found that 4,795 were not eligible to enter their names to the NRC.
The affidavit also makes it clear that out of the 10,119 names, a total of 5,404 names, who had the eligibility, were excluded from the final NRC published last year. The affidavit also clearly stated that names of 1032 'Doubuful voters' or 'D' voters were also included in the final NRC.
It may be mentioned here that the process to update the NRC in Assam began following the Supreme Court order in 2013, with the state’s nearly 33 million people demanded to prove their nationality. They were descendants of those living in Assam from prior to March 24, 1971.
While the 3.1 crores of Assam's 3.3 crore population made it to the final NRC, 1.9 million applicants failed to make it to the historical documents. The NRC, which was updated under the direct monitoring of the Supreme Court, however, drew severe controversies immediately after it was published.
Organizations like the All Assam Students' Union (Aasu) and the Assam Public Work (APW) condemned the document and said that the State and Centre governments have failed to come out with true figures and demanded another verification of the whole process.
The ruling BJP led dispensation at Delhi and Dispur had taken credit for the efforts to publish the NRC ahead of August 31, 2019. The Central Government had also declared that a similar exercise would be carried out across the country to identify citizens apart from infiltrators. However, the Assam government distanced itself from the NRC immediately after the publication and demanded the Centre to scrap the document citing several 'lacunae' in it.
