GUWAHATI: Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took a dig at Opposition MLAs for protesting in the Assembly against scrapping of the NRC, claiming that AIUDF and a section of Congress legislators were “satisfied with the NRC at a time when indigenous organisations had sought a review of the exercise.”
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Sarma alleged that the previous NRC state coordinator, Prateek Hajela had committed serious mistakes during the update process of the citizens register and the fact that a section of Opposition legislators were against a fresh exercise “only proves whose interests the state coordinator had served”.
“Organisations such as AASU had sought a review of the NRC update process. Several indigenous organisations too had sought rectification of anomalies in the drill. And here we have a section of Congress and AIUDF MLAs batting for the NRC and satisfied with the update exercise,” he said. Sarma further claimed that the “anomalies in the NRC update process would be highlighted in the Assembly itself.”
Regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the minister said he believed the legislation would be passed in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
“The Union home minister would be meeting all the chief ministers of the Northeast besides representatives of political parties and civil society groups of the region in the next two days in Delhi for taking their views on CAB,” Sarma said.
“CAB is necessary for Assam’s future. Once the names of those excluded from updated NRC is struck out (from voters’ list), the political control in many constituencies will change drastically,” he said. (With UNI inputs)
