GUWAHATI: Not just Assam’s ruling BJP and some organisations, the aborigines too fear the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) may not be error-free even as a citizens’ group has insisted that NRC should be accepted as a primary document for Indian citizens of Assam from now on.
Leaders of various tribal communities, who met in Guwahati on Thursday, expressed the apprehension that many of their people would be excluded while many illegal immigrants would make it to the final list of the NRC to be published on August 31.
“We have learnt that many of our people have been left out of the list but the names of thousands of illegal immigrants have been included. A document that doesn’t include the aborigines but illegal immigrants can never be a correct document,” a joint statement issued by various organisations of the tribal communities said.
Ramen Singh Rabha, president of All Rabha Students’ Union, said it would be unfortunate if a single tribal was left out.
“We all had wanted a full-proof NRC. But there are various allegations about people renting out their legacy data to the illegal immigrants so they could get included in NRC. Under such circumstances, we don’t believe we are going to get an error-free NRC,” he said.
A citizens’ forum called “Axom Nagarik Samaj”, which is made up of retired bureaucrats and senior journalists also did not rule out discrepancies. It said there could be errors in the document but by following legal procedures, the wrong entries should be deleted and the names of genuine citizens must be incorporated.
“However, to reject the NRC altogether will be a conspiratorial move which will pave an unending way for divisive politics in Assam. Under no circumstances, this could be supported. We want the NRC to be accepted from now on as a primary document for the Indian citizens of Assam,” the forum insisted.