National Register Of Complaints

Why major political parties in Assam are dissatisfied with the final NRC list.

- Rabi Banerjee

ASSAM IS DONE counting, and apparently no one is happy. No political entity, that is. On August 31, the state government released the final list of the National Register of Citizens, which left out about 19.6 lakh people. As many as 3.29 crore had applied for the NRC. The second draft of the list, released in July 2018, had excluded more than 40 lakh people because they could not prove their Indian citizenship. In June this year, another one lakh were excluded from the list. More than 41 lakh were on the verge of statelessness.

This number, however, was halved on August 31, which pleased a lot many citizens, but not the political parties and students’ groups. Each party thought the list would give it ammo against its rivals, but that did not happen.

The Congress is angry because lakhs in the Muslim community, which had overwhelmingly voted in its favour in the previous Lok Sabha elections, could lose their voting rights. The Election Commission of India has asked for the electoral rolls to be updated; the Assam assembly elections are due in 2021.

The Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government, which ruled for 15 years, had been cautious about the NRC exercise. And ever since the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, the Congress and Gogoi had been careful not to alienate any community, be it the Hindus or Muslims.