NEW DELHI: BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav has said people excluded from the final list of Assam-specific National Register of Citizens would be de-franchised and deported to their country, while Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal suggested that the NRC be implemented across India.
Addressing a seminar on ‘NRC: Defending the Borders, Securing the Culture’, Sonowal said genuine citizens of India would get adequate opportunities to prove their citizenship and include their names in the final list of the NRC.
“The NRC should be implemented in all states. This is a document which can protect all Indians. Those who will be excluded from the NRC in Assam can go to other states. So we will have to take strong step,” he said at the seminar, organized by think-tank ‘Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini’.
The update of the NRC, a Supreme Court-monitored exercise to identify genuine Indian nationals living in Assam, excluded more than 40 lakh people from the draft list published on July 30, triggering a political controversy.
At the seminar, Madhav said the NRC is being updated as part of the ‘Assam Accord’ signed in 1985 under which the government had made a commitment to “detect, delete and deport” all illegal immigrants from the state.
“The NRC will ensure the detection of all illegal immigrants. The next step will be deletion of names of illegal immigrants from voters list and deprive them from all government benefits. The next stage will be deportation,” he said.
Slamming those who have said that India will have to face international criticism if illegal immigrants are deported, the BJP leader said even Bangladesh has been in active talks with Myanmar to deport lakhs of Rohingya people, who have taken shelter there to escape persecution in Myanmar.
Madhav said no country in the world tolerates illegal immigrants but India has become a “dharamshala” (lodge) for illegal immigrants due to political considerations.
He said the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, after realizing the enormity of the problem of illegal immigrants in Assam, had enacted a state-specific law in the 1950s to expel foreigners.
“Nehru’s great-grandson should read history and extend support to detect and deport illegal immigrants from Assam,” he said, referring to Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
BJP Vice President and Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said the issue of illegal immigrants has national importance. “We all are with the Assam government. This issue (illegal immigrants) can come up anywhere in India,” he said. PTI
