GUWAHATI: The All Assam Students’ Union has cautioned chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal that his government should immediately act upon the standard operating procedures (SOP) laid down by Supreme Court for an “error-free” National Register of Citizens instead of “shirking responsibility” and “passing the buck”.
The warning comes in the wake of the chief minister’s statement that “organisations in the state have not been active in regard to the relatively low number of objections during the NRC update process and that if none should make a hue and cry later if any anomalies are found in the document.”
Throwing an open challenge to Sonowal, the leaders of the influential students union said that if the chief minister had the “courage” and is concerned about the security of indigenous people, he should act now and delete all names of Bangladeshis, if any, in the complete draft NRC, even if 15 days are only left for the claims and objections process.
“The Supreme Court has clearly mentioned in the SOP that only and only Indian citizens should be included in NRC. The law and the SOP clearly mentions that officials, right from the deputy commissioners to circle officers, should suo motu verify whether any foreigners’ names have been included in the NRC. However, our chief minister and the state government are not only playing a passive role in this regard but passing the buck to save their skin,” AASU chief advisor, Samujjal Bhattacharya said while addressing mediapersons here on Saturday.
The union said that about 2,500 officials have been assigned to verify and re-verify names included in the NRC draft so that the final document is without any error.
“The apex court has also said that during the course of the claims and objections process, the state government in association with UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) must ensure biometrics enrolment of all NRC applicants. However, till date, we are yet to know from the chief minister if a single person has been enrolled,” Bhattacharya pointed.
The senior AASU leader further stated that the chief minister and the Assam government will be held responsible if there are errors in the final NRC.
“On our part, we along with 28 indigenous organisations have been keeping a close watch on the NRC update process in all the districts. We will take a decision on December 7 in this regard,” Bhattacharya said.
The AASU chief advisor also said that the union was also trying to ascertain “why the figure of 40lakh people not included in the complete draft did not tally with the government quoted figure of 50lakh”.
The Supreme Court is monitoring the NRC update process in Assam. The citizenship status, according to the apex court, is based on a special provision under law (for Assam) which states that applications would be invited from all residents with relevant documents based on the NRC of 1951 and electoral rolls up to 1971.
