Finally, the much awaited final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is out without much trouble despite the Government making the Army standby as well as deploying over 20,000 personnel of paramilitary forces. What is heart burning is suddenly, nearly 41 lakh Indian citizens, both Muslims and Hindus and even in some cases the Assamese, failed to make it to the final draft published on Monday. The omission of so large a number of people had predictably found its echo in Parliament and the Upper House was forced to be adjourned for the day. It took more than painful five years to bring out the final draft of 3.29 crore people after Supreme Court’s order in 2013. Many deadlines have been crossed and an impatient Supreme Court had to give an ultimatum to file the final draft by the July 30 deadline. 

It may be noted that after publishing the first draft of 1.9 crore people in December 31 last, the final draft had removed 1.25 lakh names from the first draft. Now we have a mammoth 41 lakh people who will get one month to verify their names with officers who are slow in their work and whose work ethics are doubtful. It is a sad commentary to make that in 2011 when the draft electoral rolls were published about 3.7 lakh voters were found to be “D” (doubtful) voters. The Election Commission referred their cases to the 100-odd Foreigners Tribunals which could detect about 30,000 people as not having any genuine certificates to prove their genuine citizenship. 

And ever since, the NRC updating began, the state election office, Assam Police, Assam Border Police, et al were working at cross purposes. If SEC (State Election Commission) finds one genuine, the police will find him vice versa. The NRC updating was done in a hurry to meet SC deadlines. Thus they randomly omitted names of people. Otherwise how is it possible to have sons or daughters’ names not found while father and mother are on the list? The final draft has unleashed a Frankenstein monster.

 

---

Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

<< Back to News List