Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and other Congress leaders met this morning over NRC. (File)

The central government "should conduct NRC in parliament", Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said today soon after the final Assam citizens' list was released, which excluded over 19 lakh people.

Addressing the reporters after the senior Congress leaders met this morning at 10 Janpath in Delhi where the NRC list was discussed, Mr Chowdhury said that the government has failed to handle the issue in Assam.

"The country belongs to them. They should conduct NRC wherever they wish to. They were not able to handle Assam NRC, they may go to other states also. They should conduct NRC in parliament also. I am also an outsider as my father lived in Bangladesh," said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha.

The Congress meeting was attended by interim party chief Sonia Gandhi, senior Congress leaders like AK Antony, Gaurav Gogoi, among other senior party leaders.

"No genuine citizen should be ousted in any condition and all the genuine citizens must be provided protection," he said.

Earlier today, countering the critics, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said the NRC is needed in Delhi as the illegal immigrants who have settled here are dangerous. With polls around the corner, Mr Tiwari said that having NRC-like exercise in Delhi will be part of party's election manifesto as well.

The final list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was published on Saturday, excluding over 19 lakh people. Whereas over three crore people have been found eligible for the inclusion in the final NRC, Prateek Hajela, the State Coordinator of the NRC, said in an official statement.

The exercise is aimed at identifying legal residents and weed out illegal immigrants from the state

The first list of NRC was first published in Assam in 1951. When the draft NRC was published on July 30, 2018, there was a huge controversy over the exclusion of 40.7 lakh people from it.