GUWAHATI: Assam parliamentary affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary on Monday clarified that the state government has already submitted an affidavit in Supreme Court demanding sample re-verification of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the final draft of which was completed in August last year.
Replying during the Question Hour of the four-day Assam Assembly session which began on Monday, Patowary said, “In fact, our chief minister has already made the state government’s stand clear in regard to NRC. We have submitted an affidavit in the apex court demanding 20 per cent verification of the NRC in the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10 per cent verification in the other districts for an error-free NRC.”
The parliamentary affairs minister said that the government had always wanted an error-free NRC “wherein no Indian is omitted and no foreigner included”.
Earlier, the Assembly session began under strict COVID-19 safety protocols, and for the first time, only 50 per cent of the MLAs from the political parties were asked to attend the House physically on a single day.
It may be noted that four legislators were detected COVID-19 positive on Sunday.
The session though began on a stormy note with heated arguments and protests staged by the Opposition on several issues, including the pandemic.
Congress MLA from Mariani, Rupjyoti Kurmi was suspended from the Question Hour session for allegedly disobeying the Speaker’s request to cut short his submission in the House.
As many as 21 bills are likely to come up during the four-day session.
Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia later informed that the Opposition wanted a special discussion on the COVID-19 situation in the state but the prayer was denied by the Speaker.
