Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has claimed that about three to five lakh people will apply for Indian citizenship under the CAA in the state, asserting that the applicants will comprise only those who were excluded from the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC). He also said that 7 lakh Muslims and 5 lakh Hindu-Bengalis, among others, were left out of the NRC list.
“Many Hindu-Bengalis had come at different points of time and stayed at refugee camps. When they applied for inclusion in NRC, they submitted a stamped paper as proof of having stayed at such camps. But, Prateek Hajela (former NRC state coordinator) did not accept the paper. As a result, names of many Hindu-Bengalis were not included in the NRC,” Sarma said.
He further said that while many among the 5 lakh Hindu-Bengalis who had applied for inclusion in NRC will submit applications under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, many others will take legal recourse.
Applicants excluded from the NRC also include 2 lahks ‘proper Assamese’ like those having the Das (surname), the ‘Koch-Rajbongshi’ (community) and 1.5 lahks Gorkhas, claimed Chief Minister Sarma.
“Applications under the CAA will be three lakhs, with a 10 per cent margin of error. There won’t be any 15 18 20 lakh or 1.5 crore applicants in Assam. After being in politics for so long, I have that much grip on the state,” Assam CM asserted.
The Supreme Court-monitored NRC was published on August 31, 2019 and excluded 19 lakh of the 3.4 crore applicants.
The Centre had earlier this month implemented the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, notifying the rules four years after the law was passed by Parliament to fast-track citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India before December 31, 2014.
