india

Updated: Jun 30, 2020 02:54 IST

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced that National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented in his state on the lines of Assam.

The announcement came days after Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das on Tuesday last pushed for the implementation of NRC in his state. Das said illegal Bangladeshi migrants were eating away the benefits of the state’s legal Muslim residents and raised the pitch on a simmering political issue ahead of assembly elections due in Jharkhand along with Haryana and Maharashtra later this year.

“We will implement NRC in Haryana,” Khattar said. He was talking to reporters in Panchkula after meeting Justice H S Bhalla (retd) and former Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba at their residences as part of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s Maha Sampark Abhiyan (public outreach programme) ahead of the state polls. He has previously, too, supported NRC implementation across the country.

“I met them [Bhalla and Lanba] under Maha Sampark Abhiyan under which we meet prominent citizens. When we meet, the talk revolves around how to take the country forward and other such issues,” he said. Khattar said that Justice Bhalla has taken up many assignments after his retirement and headed the state human rights commission. “These days he is also working on NRC and will visit Assam soon. I have said that we will implement NRC in Haryana and have sought Bhalla ji’s support and suggestion,” he said.

The final NRC in Assam was published on August 31 and excluded over 1.9 million people as part of an exercise to identify legal residents and undocumented immigrants. The list in Assam was updated after 68 years and ended four years of painstaking work and decades-old demand seeking detection of illegal immigrants.

The first NRC was prepared in Assam in 1951. It was updated since 2015 following directions from the Supreme Court. The demand for identification of illegal immigrants, deletion of their names from voter lists and deportation started in 1979 and led to a six-year agitation. A draft of NRC was released in July 2018 and had left out 4 million applicants.

An official release, quoting the chief minister, said the state government is working on a “parivar pechchan patra [family ID card], and added its data would be used in the NRC”.

Former chief minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday said that there was nothing new in Khattar’s statement regarding NRC in Haryana. “What the CM has said is already the law. Foreigners have to leave. It is the responsibility of the government to identify them,” Hooda said.

Khattar separately said that constitution of a Law Commission was also being considered in Haryana and an independent department would be set up to seek the services of intellectuals.

“He [Justice Bhalla] suggested a Law Commission should be set up in Haryana. We shall study it and examine this too. The government will look into the feasibility of setting up of this commission and if people get benefited with it, it will be set up,” Khattar said.

(With PTI inputs)