GUWAHATI: Assam Assembly Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami said “some people” had created a “sensation” unnecessarily by reporting the exclusion of his elder brother and space scientist Jitendra Nath Goswami from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the final list of which was published on August 31.
“Some people are creating a sensation unnecessarily. This should not have happened. We should first check if someone had applied for inclusion of his name in the NRC. If he hadn’t, why should his name be in the NRC? But without verifying it, we cannot say this was wrong on the part of the NRC authorities to not include someone’s name,” the Speaker said.
He said he has several brothers and those who are living in Assam permanently had applied and all of them got included in the list.
“Those who do not live in Assam, they did not apply. He (Jitendra Nath) votes in Gujarat and he has his name in the voters’ list there. So, it is not necessary that he should enlist his name in the NRC. He is an Indian citizen and settled in Gujarat. If he had applied, he would have also made it to the list. One of our brothers lives in America. He also did not apply,” Goswami said.
He said his space scientist brother, who was an advisor to Chandrayaan II mission, had been settled in Gujarat as it was convenient for him to shuttle between Ahmedabad and Bangalore to do his work.
Of over 3.30 crore people who had applied seeking the inclusion of their names in the NRC, a little over 19 lakh people were excluded. Those left out can challenge their cases by filing appeals in the various Foreigners’ Tribunals. The process is yet to begin.