New Delhi: Amid heightened tension over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has urged the people of the state to wait till June 30 - the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is published.
"It is a constitutional process and a sensitive issue. So, I request the people of Assam to wait till the final part of NRC gets published," he told the Millennium Post in an exclusive interview.
Meanwhile, a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is examining the legislation intends to have wider consultations with legal and constitutional experts. JPC Chairman Rajendra Agarwal, a BJP Parliamentarian, told mediapersons here last month that though he is a member of the ruling party but does not represent his party in the JPC and has always had an unbiased approach. The Assam CM further said, "The process adopted by the JPC is very transparent and democratic process. It is an all-party committee. They are going to take the views of the people, which mean 'taking the people along'. Nothing is going under 'darkness'." "At the same time, the state government is under the supervision of the apex court. By June 30, the process will be over. So till then, we are requesting the people of the state to wait," Sonowal added.
The Bill proposes citizenship to six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists who have migrated from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh to India before 2014.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP's ally Asom Gana Parishad has complained about the violation of Assam accord (Memorandum of Settlement (MoS), which was signed between the Government of India and leaders of the Assam Movement on August 15 1985, after a six-year agitation demanding identification and deportation of illegal immigrants that was launched by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) in 1979. However, the Assam CM claimed that the issue is being 'misinterpreted' and therefore, the state government has come up with outreach programmes.
"We have started the dialogue with the senior citizens, intellectuals, and even with the editors of the leading media houses, both the print media and audio-visual. We are also trying to elaborate them the situation," he said.
"For the first time, such is happening in the country. Assam is the first state which is updating the NRC. It will 'justify the truth' of the existence of Indians and the foreigners. So this will reveal the fact of the existence of foreigners in Assam," the chief minister further added.
He also called NRC is the demand of the people of the Assam. " This will be a remarkable achievement of Assam, so also NRC has been a demand of the people for more than 35 years. So, now we are going to meet the long-pending require," he asserted.
Besides, Sonowal also met the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in the last week of May here, where Singh assured him to review the administrative and security arrangements related to updating of NRC. Sources said Sonowal further requested the home minister to set up a committee to make recommendations for implementation of Clause 6 of Assam Accord that guarantees constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to protect preserve and promote the cultural, social and linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.