The Assam unit of the BJP has “criticised” National Register of Citizens (NRC) state coordinator Prateek Hajela for telling the Supreme Court that so far, 27% of the names included in the draft had been verified again, even as the apex court dismissed appeals by both the state and the Centre demanding 10-20% sample re-verification earlier in the week. Following the SC order on Tuesday, several party leaders met in Guwahati on Wednesday evening. The meet was chaired by state BJP chief Ranjeet Dass. After the meet, at a press conference, the leaders said 27% re-verification, as claimed by Hajela, was “not acceptable” as it was not directed by the Supreme Court. The statement alleged that Hajela was working under the direction of “certain forces” to “publish a faulty NRC with names of illegal foreigners in it”. Speaking to The Indian Express on Thursday, Dass questioned Hajela’s intent. “On what basis did he do the 27% re-verification? We suspect malafide intent. We had demanded up to 20% re-verification to ensure a correct NRC without wrongful exclusion and inclusion. We stand by our demand. Even if some more time is taken, we want a correct NRC.” Hajela has been censured against speaking to the press by the SC. In its Tuesday order, the Supreme Court had said, “We have also taken note of the prayers made on behalf of the Union of India and the State of Assam for a sample re-verification of a limited percentage of the exercise done so far to take care of wrongful inclusions and exclusions. We have also read and considered the response of Mr. Hajela, the learned Coordinator on this aspect of the matter, and specifically, the stand taken by him in his report dated 18.7.2019, which is to the effect that in the course of consideration/adjudication of the claims, re-verification to the extent of 27% has already been done. In that view of the matter, we do not consider it necessary to accede to the prayers for a further sample verification as prayed for on behalf of the Union of India and the State of Assam. No further orders in the matter would be called for at this stage.” The demand for sample re-verification stems from the argument that it will help weed out wrongful inclusions from the NRC. The register, prepared in 1951, is being updated to include the names of people or their descendants who appear in the 1951 NRC, in any of electoral rolls, or in any one of the several other admissible documents issued up to the midnight of March 24, 1971. The final draft was published in July last year and included 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore applicants — excluding around 40 lakh people. In an additional exclusion list published last month, NRC authorities further dropped 1,02,462 applicants who were found ineligible for exclusion upon consequent rounds of verification and quality checks. All of them have a chance to file appeals. The final NRC is now scheduled to be published on August 31. The Indian Express had reported earlier this month that the State and the Centre had filed applications to the SC demanding that in districts close to the Bangladesh border, there should a sample re-verification of 20% names and in other districts, it should be carried out for 10% names that appeared in the final draft.
