From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Pandemonium rocked Assam Assembly at the beginning of Monsoon Session over ‘D’ (doubtful) voters issue here on Monday forcing the Speaker to engage marshals to evict noisy members of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).
It all started when a BJP member of the House, Ranjit Das, raised a question about alleged police harassment of Bengali-speaking Hindus in certain parts of Barpeta district branding those ‘genuine Indian citizens’ as ‘D’ (doubtful) voters.
At this an MLA from the AIUDF, Sheman Ali intervened saying that while 97 per cent of the “D” category voters in the State had been established as genuine Indian citizens, state police had been subjecting a larger section of them to economic and physical harassment. Ali also demanded an order for enquiry into such police harassment by the state government.
He was joined by all other MLAs from the AIUDF who then moved to the well of the House shouting slogans and disrupting the proceeding.
As the bedlam loomed large over the House, the Speaker called in the marshals to get the unruly AIUDF members evicted.
Later, speaking to the media outside the House, the AIUDF MLAs accused the Congress government of burying the democratic norms and called the Speaker partisan.
Talking on behalf of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), Minister for Forest and Rural Development Rakibul Hussain said that the lingering ‘D’ voters’ issue in the State could be solved only through updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the State. He said while the incumbent Congress government was trying to update the NRC, the AIUDF wants to keep the issue hanging fire by trying to throw spanner in the process.
The minister informed that the cabinet sub-committee on NRC updating had recommended for updating the NRC for all the districts as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi stated that it was the Election Commission that had declined to withdraw ‘D’ voters tag even though 97 per cent of those had been found genuine Indian citizens.
Assam government had earlier set up 36 foreigners’ tribunals to resolve the issue of ‘D’ voters – a problem unique to Assam in view of the burning problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The issue of ‘D’ voters which has snowballed into a raging political issue in the communally sensitive state, came into being in 1998 when Election Commission of India issued an order saying that a person who is unable to provide proof of his citizenship during the enumeration for the electoral rolls shall be marked as a doubtful voter (‘D’ voters). They are barred from voting in elections.
The Election Commission gave this order considering the provisions in the Representation of People’s Act, 1950 and Representation of People’s Act 1951. The Commission issued the order under the powers provided to it in Article 326 of the Constitution.
Subsequent to the order of the Election Commission, Gauhati High Court also issued an order saying persons whose citizenship cases are pending in foreigners tribunals under the Foreigners’ Act should also be marked as ‘D’ voters and barred from voting.
Minister Rakibul Hussain said that total 2,13,657 cases of ‘D’ voters were referred to tribunals till date out of which 91,159 cases had been settled. Out of those 7152 persons were declared foreign nationals while 46190 persons had been found Indian citizens.