SHILLONG: Former chief minister and Opposition leader Mukul Sangma on Tuesday batted for a
National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state, but said that the National Population Register (NPR)
must precede it to ensure that no serious problems arise as in the case of Assam where the register of citizens was published last week.
Stating that NRC is important, he said, “It is an irony that India being a country with a massive population has no NRC. Every country should have NRC.”
Observing that the NRC updation exercise in Assam had some loopholes, the former chief minister nonetheless said it is a very important document, but the NPR should be in place before going for the NRC.
The NPR registers the population of the state, which includes both permanent and bonafide residents and temporary residents like students, employees and others who may or may not be residents of the state.
“Prior to NRC, there must be an NPR in absence of which there will be serious problems as faced in Assam. There has to be an authentic mechanism to ensure the people are not subjected to any agonising process,” he said. According to him, the NRC should be born out of the NPR. “We started the exercise for National Population Register which will have the entire list of the population— people residing in a locality under different categories. The residents may include permanent bonafide residents and also those who are temporary and may or may not be residents of the state,” Sangma said.
He also shared the concerns of the affected genuine Indian citizens whose names did not appear in the NRC in Assam saying they should be taken care of.
“It is time to reassure the affected genuine citizens that we stand with them. The people were subjected to an agonising and expensive exercise. The affected genuine citizens must be taken care of,” Sangma said.
According to him, it is unacceptable if a genuine citizen’s name does not appear on the NRC. Their trauma will have to be understood, he said. ) Commenting on the situation of Garos in Assam who are left out of the NRC, he said the question of certificates came up only in the recent years as people in villages do not keep records of births while the importance of certificates was realised when people pursued higher education.
It may be mentioned that there were claims that locals especially the older generation in Assam do not maintain any documented proof.
According to Sangma, there should have been some proviso or other alternative mechanisms of verifying the authenticity of the claims of the individuals.
“They did not learn after the first exercise when 41 lakh people were excluded. It is not a matter of joke when people suddenly become stateless because of the faulty exercise,” he said.
