The Central Government is drafting a fresh affidavit opposing Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) State Coordinator Prateek Hajela’s proposal to drop five documents, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delegation from Barak Valley was reportedly assured by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
A report published in the The Assam Tribune stated that an 11-member BJP delegation led by the former Union Minister Kabindra Purkayastha met the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday to discuss the recent developments concerning the NRC, Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 among other issues.
The report further quoted Purkayastha as saying, “We discussed about NRC on which an attempt is being made to mislead the people. And this has been done by State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela. The move to exclude five documents is not acceptable to us and the Union Home Minister has assured us that none of the 15 documents will be allowed to be excluded,” claimed Purkayastha.
“The Centre is drafting a new affidavit, which will be submitted before the Supreme Court. We have been assured that not a single document will be allowed to be excluded,” he said. Hajela suggested dropping the 1951 NRC, pre-1971 voters’ lists, citizenship certificate, refugee registration certificate and ration cards from the 15 documents that are listed as valid proof to support citizenship.
The notification allows persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution in those countries and entered into India on or before December 31, 2014.
There are attempts being made to divide the people of Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys and the BJP is opposed to it, Purkayastha said. He said that his delegation has demanded that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill should be passed and they were assured that religiously persecuted communities will be granted citizenship as also long-term visas.