Those excluded from NRC can vote in Assam; Cong, AIUDF welcome EC decision

A day after the ElectionCommission announced that those excluded from the NationalRegister of Citizens NRC will be eligible to vote in theupcoming assembly poll if their names are there on the voterlist, the ruling BJP on Thursday said status quo about theirvoting rights has to be maintained while the Congress and theAIUDF welcomed the decision.The final NRC, a database of Indian citizens living inAssam which was updated under the supervision of the SupremeCourt and published on August 31, 2019, excluded names of over19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants.However, it has not been notified by the RegistrarGeneral of India yet.

A day after the ElectionCommission announced that those excluded from the NationalRegister of Citizens (NRC) will be eligible to vote in theupcoming assembly poll if their names are there on the voterlist, the ruling BJP on Thursday said status quo about theirvoting rights has to be maintained while the Congress and theAIUDF welcomed the decision.

The final NRC, a database of Indian citizens living inAssam which was updated under the supervision of the SupremeCourt and published on August 31, 2019, excluded names of over19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants.

However, it has not been notified by the RegistrarGeneral of India yet. This leaves the document without anyofficial validity.

''Lakhs of Indian citizens were excluded in the NRC butnames of many illegal immigrants are there in it. The NRCdocument in its present form has not been accepted by theparty and we have asked for a re-verification. Till it isdone, status quo has to be maintained as the notification isyet to be issued,'' BJP Assam unit president Ranjeet Dass toldPTI.

State Congress Spokesperson Bobbeeta Sharma said thatNames of many genuine Indian citizens were left out of thefinal NRC.

''The EC has taken the right step in allowing them tovote. Otherwise, their democratic rights would have beeninfringed upon,'' she said.

The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), analliance partner of the Congress for the assembly polls due inMarch-April, also welcomed the EC's decision describing it as''a positive move''.

AIUDF General Secretary Aminul Islam said, ''We alsowant a permanent solution to the problems of Doubtful or D-voters which exists only in Assam. We requested the ElectionCommission that doubtful voters should be allowed to voteunless they have been declared as foreigners,'' he said.

D-voters are those who could not provide evidence infavour of their Indian nationality.

Altogether 83,008 cases of doubtful voters are pendingin Foreigners Tribunals in Assam while 86,756 others weredeclared as foreigners in the last five years, the governmentinformed the Lok Sabha in September last year.

Lurinjyoti Gogoi, president of the newly formed AssamJatiya Parishad, however, said that those excluded from theNRC should not be allowed to vote as it will only lead to theadvantage of some political parties.

Gogoi, as general secretary of All Assam StudentsUnion (AASU), was a petitioner in the Supreme Court seeking toremove discrepancies in the NRC.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, citing aUnion Home Ministry order, said here on Wednesday that thoseexcluded from the final NRC can vote in the assembly polls iftheir names are there in the published electoral rolls.

After the publication of the final NRC, almost allstakeholders and political parties criticised it as a faultydocument, alleging exclusion of indigenous people andinclusion of illegal migrants.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)