Assam NRC issue: Shah challenges Rajiv Gandhi’s guts, Opposition stages walkout

The issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft has gained momentum in the parliament since Monday and lead to the adjournment of the Session on Tuesday too. Comments and counter comments made by the parliamentarians are irking each other. Latest to the edition, is the comment of BJP president Amit Shah who challenged the guts of Congress failing to implement NRC draft and opposition staged a walkout.

Addressing the issue in Lok Sabha and expressing his opinion, Shah stated, “Rajiv Gandhi signed Assam accord in 1985, which was similar to NRC. They did not have courage to implement it.” He alleged that the previous Congress governments did do noting to solve the issue for the sake of appeasement politics.

The statement irked the fellow parliamentarians who staged a walkout. Earlier in the day the Trinamool Congress Derek O’ Brian had stated that party would send three members to take a stock of the situation of Rohingyas ‘refugees’ in Assam. He had tweeted, “On August 2 and 3, a delegation comprising 6 MPs from Trinamool (Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Ratna De Nag, Nadimul Haque, Arpita Ghosh, Mamata Thakur) and State Minister Firhad Hakim and Mahua Moitra, MLA, will be visiting Assam for NRC.”

With the NRC draft being implemented in Assam, the identity of 40 lakh people are at stake. Since there has been a lot of controversy in the political arena, the Union Home Ministry is trying to cover up with their bureaucratic procedures. A senior Home Ministry official had said earlier that people will be given a month time to prove their identity and this can be extended for one more month. However, conformity on the is yet to be decided.

Raking up the issue in Parliament, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “Genuine Indians should not be sent out of the country. NRC should not be politicised and used as vote bank. It is a human rights issue, not a Hindu-Muslim issue.” The opposition leader also blamed the Union government for not dealing the matter diplomatically.

Making his point in Lok Sabha and questioning the Union government over the NRC issue, TMC leader Sugato Bose said, “External Affairs Ministry is conducting ‘operation insaniyat’ for Rohingyas in Bangladesh. There are 40,000 Rohingyas in India, will we show insaniyat for only those who are in Bangladesh?”

However, the reply of Union MoS for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju was of the opinion that Rohingyas are illegal immigrants and not be termed as refugees. He had said, “This is an unfortunate statement by him (TMC’s Sugata Bose).India is probably only country which has adopted such a soft approach to refugees. We also told Myanmar that we are ready to assist them in providing facilities to Rohingyas when they return.”

According to the NRC draft, 2.89 crore people have been found eligible in the complete draft of the NRC, out of 3.29 crore. The complete draft report was released in Guwahati on Monday. The report further states, 40.07 lakh people would have to leave country, if thy could not prove their identity within a month.

Though the report stated that its complete, the Union government tried to cover up the matter by saying that is not the final list and missing people get a letter soon. They will also get one month time to get their name registered between August 30 and September 28. The report was first published in 1951 to recognise those who entered the state from Bangladesh.