Storm over new, pruned NRC list on proof papers

Guwahati: With Supreme Court deferring the process of receiving claims and objections for inclusion of names in the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the state coordinator of NRC Prateek Hajela has triggered a fresh controversy by proposing to strike down five of the listed 15 documents for the claims and objections process.

The proposal has not only irked Opposition Congress but even the  ruling BJP which has also reacted sharply to it and accused the NRC coordinator of not consulting the stakeholders on the proposal that he has submitted to the apex court.

The five documents, suggested for exclusion, includes the NRC of 1951, electoral roll of 1971, citizenship certificate, refugee certificate and ration card, all issued either by the Centre or the state government, in keeping with the provisions of the Assam Accord.

The outrage started after the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R.F. Nariman agreed to the proposal of the NRC coordinator in which he suggested that 10 of a total 15 documents provided in List-A of the claims form could be used by the applicants to prove their legacy.

The apex court has asked the Centre and other stakeholders to respond to this suggestion of the NRC coordinator within two weeks. It has scheduled the next hearing for September 19.

Assam BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass said that Mr Hajela’s submission negates the decisions taken under the Assam Accord, 1985. “We would like to ask Mr Hajela who gave him the authority to make such a submission for curtailing the number of documents required to prove identity during the claims and objections process.”

Mr Dass accused Mr Hajela of not consulting the groups, which are parties in the National Register of Citizens case in the top court. “Mr Hajela did not even check with the state government. Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has also confirmed that he was not consulted over the issue,” he said.

“If all these documents were allowed in the application stage for inclusion in the NRC (in 2015), how can they be disallowed now? It is like changing the rules of the game 15 minutes ahead of completion time,” he said.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia has accused the NRC coordinator of misleading the Supreme Court.

All Assam Minority Students Union (Aamsu) has threatened to launch a stir and file a counter affidavit against the NRC proposal.

Aamsu adviser Azizur Rahman argued, “We all know that in a family some members got their names included while others were excluded in the draft NRC. Some members of a family might have got their names included by submitting the 1951 NRC document, but this document is not being allowed to be used by other family members.  This is a clear violation of right to equality.” Nearly 40.07 lakh were excluded in the NRC draft.