The Assam government has decided to make public district-wise figures of Bangla-speaking Hindus who were excluded from the final NRC, the state’s senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. He said the figures would be placed in the Assembly during the ongoing session.
Sarma also told reporters in Guwahati on Thursday that India’s top auditor the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found "huge irregularities" in the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state three years ago.
"We will make public the figure of those (excluded) Hindu Bengali people applying (to get their names included in the NRC) in different districts during the ongoing session of the Assembly," he said.
The winter session of the state Assembly that started on Thursday will end on December 6. "We could not give that data earlier as the NRC had not been prepared. Now we have the data with district-wise break up," Sarma said. Reports have it that an estimated 12 Hindus have been excluded from the updated final NRC published on August 31 out of over 19 lakh applicants left out.
The Supreme Court-monitored NRC updation exercise, aimed at identifying illegal immigrants, was carried out in Assam which has been facing influx of people since early 20th century. Sarma said the CAG had inspected the NRC office and its activities about three years ago.
"Prima facie, huge irregularities and anomalies were informed to us by the CAG. It is an official note signed by the CAG of Assam. It is not an Assam government document," he claimed. But, to avoid confusion among the people, the chief minister and he had decided at that time not to act on that report till the NRC is completed, the minister said.
Sarma did not disclose the sum of the alleged irregularities in the mammoth exercise to update the NRC. To a question on the Assam Accord, he said those who prepared the pact will speak for it. Sarma said the Assam legislative Assembly has not endorsed the 1985 Peace Accord out of which arose the need for updation of NRC. “There was no proposal in the Assembly to accept the Accord," he added.
A six-year agitation demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants was launched by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) in 1979. It had culminated with the signing of the tripartite Assam Accord on August 15, 1985, in the presence of the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.