West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Indian Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Thursday and discussed the issue of controversial final National Register of Citizens in Assam which excluded 19.6 lakh people and said ‘many genuine’ people have been omitted from the list.
Emerging from the meeting, Mamata told media persons that that she also conveyed to him that West Bengal does not need NRC. “I handed over a letter to him (Amit Shah), told him that of the 19 lakh people left out of NRC, many are Hindi-speaking, Bengali-speaking and local Assamese. Many genuine voters have been left out. This should be looked into. I submitted an official letter,” she said.
Shah had in the past said several times the NRC would be extended not only to Bengal but other parts of India as well. The implementation of the final NRC in Assam has faced widespread criticism owing to the exclusion of thousands of “genuine” Indians. A section of BJP leaders in Assam have criticized it, claiming the list left out a number of Bangla-speaking Hindus who were among the party's core voter group. Bangla-speaking Hindus comprise an estimated 18 per cent of Assam’s over three crore population.
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