GUWAHATI, Sept 01 (Agencies): A controversial citizenship list in northeast India that has left almost two million people facing statelessness has been slammed by its political backers as those excluded from it face an uncertain future.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs Assam state where the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was collated, pushed for the list saying it was necessary to detect "foreign infiltrators".
Critics said the NRC process reflected the BJP's goal to serve Hindus, with a large chunk of those excluded expected to be Muslims.
But the strategy appears to have backfired with local BJP leaders claiming that many Bengali-speaking Hindus, a key vote bank for the party, were left off the list.
"We do not trust this NRC. We are very unhappy," Ranjeet Kumar Dass, BJP party president in Assam told the Press Trust of India late Saturday.
Now BJP changed its stance on the NRC in Assam, saying 'genuine Indians' have been left out of the register, leaders of the party's Telangana and Delhi units have demanded that the exercise be replicated in their respective states.
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has assured that all the genuine citizens of the state will be given all possible assistance during the next 120 days of the process for inclusion in the NRC.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said she was shocked to see the names of thousands of genuine Indians excluded from the final NRC list for Assam.
Mamata Banerjee also said that she was unaware of the full NRC fiasco. "Names of thousands and thousands of genuine Indians, including those of CRPF and other jawans, family members of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, have been excluded," she said.
She went on to criticise the fact that the names of more than 0.1 million Gorkha people have been excluded from the list.
As Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty wrote in The Wire recently, the BJP's stance on the NRC has changed because of the possibility that a significant number of Bengali Hindus could also be excluded. The community is a voter base of the BJP.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP leader Manoj Tiwari claimed that an NRC is also needed in Delhi as undocumented immigrants who have settled there are "most dangerous".
"National Register of Citizens is needed in Delhi as the situation is becoming dangerous… We will implement the NRC here as well," he said.
Another report adds: All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen(AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday declared that the "myth floated by the BJP over illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in Assam has been busted" and called on the ruling party to realize its folly, and put an end to its attempts to wantonly target a section of the people.
Owaisi also flayed the BJP Government for mishandling of the economy that saw the country's GDP fall to five per cent from 5.9 per cent.
Owaisi said Union Home Minister Amit Shah and others in BJP have a lot of explaining to do on the National Register of Citizens which came up with a 1.9 million illegal immigrants in Assam. "Even from these, three lakh are yet to submit documents and others have 120 days to appeal. This number will fall further. What does Amit Shah who called illegal immigrants 'termites' and said Assam had 5.0 million of them, have to say now?" Owaisi asked.
