Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that a new National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise will start after the elections next year if the Supreme Court allows, as the NRC published in August last year was fundamentally wrong.
According to a report by Indian Express, Sarma said that former state coordinator and bureaucrat Prateek Hajela fundamentally prepared a wrong NRC with financial anomalies. Prateek Hajela manipulated it in such a way that, we can say, the thief was made the police. He prepared a fundamentally wrong NRC. After elections, a new NRC exercise will be undertaken if the SC allows. We are already seeking the SC’s permission to allow re-verification of included names,” Sarma was quoted by Indian Express.
Sarma also without naming anybody said that “modern Mughals” every aspect of life in Assam and a long political fight was needed to stop them.
After the final NRC was published in August 31 last year, the Supreme Court in October last year directed the Centre and Assam government to transfer National Register of Citizens (NRC) coordinator Prateek Hajela to Madhya Pradesh for maximum period permissible under relevant guidelines with immediate effect. The direction came apparently on account of threat perceptions to Hajela, PTI reported.
Hajela, as the Supreme Court mandated coordinator of NRC, was involved in the exercise since September 2013 and was responsible for creating a “legacy data” system.
In a affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in February the Assam Public Works (APW), an NGO whose petition had led to the NRC exercise in Assam, alleged that the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was published on August 31, 2019, left out the names of indigenous people but included many illegal foreigners.
It also urged the apex court that agencies such as the CBI, NIA and ED be allowed to probe the alleged misappropriation of funds and irregularities in updating the citizens' register by former NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela.
