Guwahati, March 3: BJP’s communal agenda against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is all set to get foiled, with March 20, 2020, being set as the date to start serving rejection slips to those excluded from the NRC. These slips are required to take future measures such as approaching foreigners’ tribunals.
Since the publication of final updated NRC on August 31, 2019, the leaders of the BJP including its top brass in the state were propagating that “A huge number of Bangladeshi people have been included in final NRC. So, the government of Assam will not accept it. Rather, the BJP government of the State will demand intensive review of the updated NRC.” The BJP government of the State not only made public statement against the updated NRC, but ialso submitted a petition in Supreme Court demanding 20% re-verification of people included in the NRC in Muslim minority dominated districts in Assam. The Supreme Court thankfully, rejected the baseless application of BJP promptly, and directed the NRC authority to go on with the process of NRC. After the Supreme Court directive, the BJP government of Assam allegedly tried to dilute the NRC process and also tried to go on slow in the nearly completed process by way of delaying the serving of rejection slips. This bureaucratic hurdle in serving the reason of the NRC exclusion was left hanging for nearly six months. Interestingly, the process should have actually been started within seven days of publication of final updated NRC!
The stand of BJP government on the delay in serving the reason of exclusion created huge anxiety across the state and also drew sharp criticism. But , the nightmare of running from pillar to post in order to complete post publication formalities will end soon. The government of Assam declared on the floor of Assam Legislative Assembly that the reason of exclusion will be served by NRC authority from March, 20, 2020. In a reply to a written question the parliamentary affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Pathway said, “the scanning of speaking order of present NRC is on. Till now, 88% works of the process of scanning of speaking order has been completed, the scanning of another 12% is in full swing. The NRC authority will start to serve the reason of NRC exclusion onwards 20th March, 2020.” The most important important setback for the BJP government in Assam is that it has to come out of it in the same reply, the the government of have to finally declare, “the government of Assam have no thought to prepare the NRC newly again.”
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