GUWAHATI: Anti-influx forum, Prabajan Virodhi Manch has slammed the “leaders” in the Assam government and All Assam Students Union for “not taking responsibility for the failure of the National Register of Citizens update exercise.”
In a statement issued here on Thursday, the Manch minced no words to say, “All leaders who over the last 40 years have built their political careers on the foreigner’s issue are either represented in the government or in the AASU and none have come forward to take responsibility for the failure of the NRC.”
“Chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal after publication of the draft NRC (last year) proudly claimed that the draft NRC was the protective shield for the indigenous people. During this entire 13-month period (since the release of the draft), the state government and the various leaders were busy with the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill as a large number of Hindu migrants had been excluded from the NRC. They were not bothered about the large number of Bangladeshis who had otherwise got their names included in the NRC,” the Manch convenor, Upamanyu Hazarika said.
Hazarika said that having assumed leadership on the crucial issue, “they ought to have taken the correct steps and the correct path rather than taking credit for what was obviously even then a failed NRC epitomising the failure of the Assam Movement.”
“Our leaders assumed leadership for only taking credit and not any responsibility and for this reason that the Assam Movement is today marked by failure. Had the leaders assumed responsibility in its true sense, they would have accepted the failure of the NRC and would have looked for means to retrieve the situation.
“After publication of the final list, the power and the right to re-verify rests in the central government and they (leaders) would have accordingly taken steps rather than blaming everyone else but themselves. Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan and that is today the fate of the NRC. Its main protagonist, the state BJP leadership, not only disowned the NRC but they sought to apportion the blame to the Supreme Court and NRC Assam coordinator, Prateek Hajela,” Hazarika said.
The NRC update process started after the Supreme Court rendered its judgment on December 17, 2014.
“Over the last five years during the various stages of the NRC process, multiple instances of fraud were pointed out in a section of the local media, of which the NRC coordinator did not appraise the court. None of the other parties, including those who now blame the Supreme Court and Hajela, also brought it to the court’s notice,” he alleged.
The forum also pointed out that Supreme Court had directed for a 10 per cent sample re-verificati on August 26, 2018, after publication of the draft NRC. “But the NRC coordinator did not comply with the Court’s order, but on some specious reasoning, informed the court that 27 per cent sample re-verification has been carried out. This assertion was not countered by anyone,” Hazarika said.