August 31 NRC will not be error free: Tarun Gogoi

Expressing his apprehension over the National Register of Citizens (NRC), former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said on Saturday that Assam will not get an error free NRC on August 31.

Although the final NRC was supposed to be published on July 31, the Supreme Court had recently extended the deadline to August 31.

"There are incidents of several genuine Indian citizens' names missing from the draft NRC. There are also reports of names of some foreigners' getting included in the NRC," Gogoi told the media on Saturday.

It may be mentioned here that the recently-concluded session of the Assam Legislative Assembly had witnessed debates over the NRC where even legislators of the ruling BJP questioned the NRC process.

"We have seen BJP legislators questioning the NRC process. This means that they are doubting the government of India which is responsible for preparing the NRC. I had a suspicion that the NRC will not be error free and now I am convinced that it will not be error free," Gogoi said, adding that the names of Hindu Bengali, tea tribes and Muslims were not there in the draft NRC.

Taking a dig at the Central government, the veteran politician said that the government, which has almost failed to publish an error free NRC in Assam, has claimed that it would roll out the NRC across the country.

"Earlier, the BJP-led government was satisfied with the NRC work. Now suddenly they find that it erroneous. Why has Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal not taken up the issue with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs if it is not satisfied with the NRC work," Gogoi asked.

Saying that the NDA government came to power on the assurance that it will free Assam of foreigners, Gogoi asked as to how many foreigners have been deported by the BJP government in the past five years. 

"I want to ask them how many foreigners have they detected and deported in the last five years? The NRC updation process has not barred the government from identifying the foreigners," he said. IANS