Here Is The Assam Chief Minister's Religion-Wise Classification Of 19 Lakh Excluded From NRC (Photo on X Himanta Biswa Sarma (Modi Ka Parivar) )
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently disclosed the religious break-up of those excluded from Assam’s National Register of Citizenship (NRC) drafted in 2018. According to the chief minister, out of the total 19 lakhs excluded includes seven lakhs Muslims, five lakh bengaline Hindus, two lakhs Assamese Hindus Koch-Rajbongshi, Das, Kalita and Sarma (Assamese), and 1.5 lakh Gorkhas were excluded from the list.
The state government published the NRC details in 2019 to identify and strip the citizenship of illegal immigrants in the state. As per the law, the Assamese had to prove that they or their ancestors entered Assam before March 1971 with the stipulated documents. The introduction of the NRC was made following a right wing propaganda that the Bangla-descent Muslims of Assam were “foreigners” who illegally reached India. Noting the increase in the percentage of Muslims, several politicians sparked the concept within the population.
However, with the state chief minister dividing those excluded from the list based on religion, it raised questions about the remaining 3.5 lakh people as he numbered only 15.5 lakh out of the total 19 lakhs left out of the list.
It is learnt that the huge number of Hindus left out of the NRC prompted the government to introduce the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019, through which it can provide citizenship to the excluded Hindus and other minorities while excluding Muslims.
Notably, the chief minister during the interview stated that three lakhs to six lakh of those excluded from the register could apply for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act as the rules of which were notified recently.
He had earlier claimed that those who were excluded from the NRC had migrated from Bangladesh due to religious persecution before 1971. Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2019 said that the initiatives to carry out the NRC across the country would be made, triggering fears of exclusion among India’s Muslim population.
