GUWAHATI: Former Assam chief minister and veteran Congress leader, Tarun Gogoi has slammed the Centre and state for ignoring public opinion against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), 2016, terming the government’s bid to impose the contentious legislation as “dictatorial” and “undemocratic”.
Gogoi also rued that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update process in Assam has become “meaningless” in the wake of such attempts to impose the Bill.
Addressing reporters here on Sunday, he said it was unfortunate that despite Supreme Court monitoring the NRC update process, over 40lakh people were left out of the complete draft NRC published in July last year.
“Now, with the Lok Sabha elections nearing, we might have a situation where many people who were excluded from the NRC draft might have their names featuring in the voters’ list (and thereby be eligible to vote in the polls). So this means that the NRC has been rendered value-less with crores of rupees wasted in the process,” Gogoi said.
The former chief minister further said he had always advocated NRC for all states in the country.
“I have always said that the NRC exercise should be carried out across the country to prevent foreigners from entering,” he added.
Hinting that CAB would be an issue in the coming Lok Sabha elections, Gogoi said that surveys indicated that the wave was in favour of Opposition parties, including Congress. “Congress will get more seats and the wave in general is in favour of Opposition parties,” he said.
Welcoming the Bharat Ratna recognition posthumously conferred on singer-composer-poet Bhupen Hazarika, Gogoi said that his party too had earlier honoured the legendary artiste with the Padma Vibhushan.
“We had our political differences with Bhupen Hazarika but we recognised his contributions and honoured him,” he said.