New Delhi: Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday rejected the Opposition’s charge that the draft list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was politically motivated to separate BJP supporters from others before the 2019 polls.
In an interview to CNN News18, Sarma said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s allegations were baseless as out of the 40 lakh people whose names had been excluded from the NRC draft list, almost 13-14 lakh were Hindus who may have voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“This number would have reduced had the West Bengal government cooperated with Assam. Till today, verifications are pending with that state. If they return it today, the numbers will come down,” he said.
Sarma added that the process was conducted under the watchful eyes of the Supreme Court, which had expressed its satisfaction with the exercise.
Allaying the fears of those left out of the list, the BJP leader said people would get a transparent hearing during the claims and objections process and nobody would be put in detention camps.
He reiterated that no genuine Indian citizen would be kept out of the NRC and the final call on declaring people ‘foreigners’ would be taken by the foreigner’s tribunals. However, he added that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that no foreigner was included in the NRC.
Sarma also shot down rumours that those excluded from the list would be sent to jails or detention camps. “Home minister Rajnath Singh issued a statement on the 21st that nobody would be put in detention camps. The Assam government too said the same thing. Then why is the national media asking us this question again and again? You have to respect the government’s statement,” he said.
Responding to a question on the future of the ‘stateless’ after Bangladesh reportedly refused to accommodate them, Sarma said if Nepal too did not accept them, then Parliament would take the final call on illegal immigrants.
When asked if Hindu foreigners would be given citizenship by the country, Sarma said as per his information, there was a bill pending in Parliament on the issue. “At the time of Independence, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and every Indian prime minister said people facing religious persecution in Bangladesh and Pakistan would be given shelter in India. Having said so, this is not within the power of the state government. The Centre has to take a call,” he said.
Brushing aside Banerjee’s charges of a game plan behind the NRC, Sarma asked her to first verify the pending documents and send them back to Assam to “save people from agony”. “Banerjee is doing politics and I have no answer for that. She should have approached the Supreme Court in the past three years if she had an issue with the process. Neither did she approach the court, nor did she help Assam update the NRC. This is just political sloganeering,” he added.
The BJP leader also said schools and ICDS centres would remain open for the children of foreigners but according to the law of the land, if even one parent was an illegal immigrant, the child could not claim Indian citizenship.
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