GUWAHATI: Congress charged the BJP-led government of using national register of citizens ( NRC ) to “polarize Assam on religious lines” ahead of the Lok Sabha polls by excluding names of people belonging to religious minority in the national register of citizens (NRC), despite they have relevant documents on citizenship.

Rajya Sabha MP and state Congress president, Ripun Bora on Monday claimed here, “intense” interference of the ruling party in the updating process of NRC has led to the suspicion that many names from religious minority community are going to be dropped.

“On the one hand, there has been an increase in serving notices as doubtful voters and suspected foreigners to people especially belonging to minority community despite possessing documents of citizenship, on the other we have collected ground reports of NRC officials not doing verification of documents properly. The motive is to exclude as many people from this particular community as possible,” Bora charged.

He said that even after Supreme Court allowed panchayat certificates as linkage documents especially for married women, there were allegations on NRC officials of not accepting this particular document.

“The apex court has laid down clearly set guidelines for updating the NRC, but we have come across anomalies in not following these guidelines at the ground-level by NRC officials. This is being done to polarize the state on religious lines and to benefit the BJP,” Bora accused.

NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela informed the Supreme Court earlier this month that about 1.5 Lakhs names which were included in the partial draft of the NRC, released on December 31 last year, will be excluded from the final draft. The final draft will be released on July 30. Hajela cited errors in the inclusion of these names in the part draft as one of the reasons for dropping the names. In the part draft altogether 1.9 crore names were included out of 3.29 crore.

Bora said that the Congress has decided to fight legal battles on behalf of people who have been left out of the NRC despite possessing relevant documents of citizenship.

“We want a solution to the problem of illegal migrants under Assam Accord, which has laid down March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date. Anyone who entered Assam after the cut-off should not be included in the NRC. But why exclude people who have documents to prove their linkages prior to or up to the cut-off date. Congress will provide all the legal helps to Indian citizens who are not included in the NRC,” Bora added.

