Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday (1 July) said that the government would bring a bill in the Parliament to grant citizenship to the Hindu refugees left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Home Minister made the remark in the Rajya Sabha while responding to a question by Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Derek O’Brien. The TMC MP had raised the issue of the possibility of 23 lakh Bengali Hindus losing citizenship after the publication of the final NRC by 31 July in Assam, reports The Hindu.

According to the report, around 41 lakh people have been excluded from the final draft of NRC. Of the total excluded people, as many as 36 lakh have filed claims against their exclusion.

“I want to repeat our stand on NRC. We want to stop infiltration and also push every single infiltrator out of the country. As far as Hindu refugees are concerned, we are bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill to give them Indian citizenship,” Shah said.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had said that it would compile the NRCs across the country.