File Photograph: Debabrata Saikia

Assam leader of opposition Debabrata Saikia on September 23 slammed the state BJP for not being responsible towards the people of the state and trying to create confusion with regards to NRC.

In a written statement, Saikia said that the BJP in the state never wanted to get the NRC done properly. He also accused the saffron party of contempt of court regarding the NRC as its being done under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

“The complete NRC list was published on August 31 of 2019 under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Even a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs claimed that it was error-free. Later, the Supreme Court stated that it was free from all errors after going through all the versions of different parties. Now after that, Assam BJP president and state finance minister are trying to confuse the people of Assam by saying that the Centre has agreed to their demand of 20 per cent re-verification of border districts and 10 per cent re-verification of other districts. This is unfortunate,” Saikia said.

He further said that on September 5 of 2018, the SC has directed for 10 per cent re-verification in each district which were supposed to be done by the administrative officers of other districts.

“After that when the issue was raised again just before the publication of the final list, then NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela had informed the court that at least 27 per cent re-verification was already done. The SC had accepted that and ordered for the publication of the final NRC. But just for the sake of politics, the BJP has stood in the path of NRC disobeying the SC orders. This indicates that they are not responsible and accountable for the people of Assam,” Saikia added.

“The BJP leaders’ un-Constitutional proposal for partial re-verification of names contained in the final NRC exposes the fact that the ruling party has no sense of responsibility towards the people of Assam. In fact, the BJP wants to render the NRC irrelevant by granting citizenship to certain sections of foreign nationals who came to India as late as 2014. The Congress party continues to strongly oppose this policy of the BJP,” he added.

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