Yet Another Shot At Citizenship: 4.5 Lakh People Reapply For Inclusion In Assam’s National Registry Of Citizens

About 4.5 lakh of the 40,07,707, people excluded from the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) have applied for re-inclusion in the list, The Hindu has reported. Authorities have received 175 applications challenging the inclusion of suspected foreigners in the NRC.

NRC’s Supreme Court-monitored finished draft was published on 30 July. Names of 2.9 crore people of the total 3.29 crore applicants have been included.

The claims and objections round of the exercise started on 25 September and is scheduled to end on 15 December. Anonymous officials have said that the pace of submitting re-applications is expected to pick up before the deadline.

The low turnout of applications is also attributed to the government’s delay in setting up a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the arrangement of claims and objections. The SC has also delayed in allowing the five documents that Prateek Hajela strove to be scrapped from the initial 15 papers submitted by the applicants.

The Assam government has also decided to stop marking Gorkhas as suspected foreigners. The move is in response the circular received from Central Home Ministry declaring that Gorkhas, who are citizens of India or who have Nepalese documents cannot be referred to foreigners tribunals to prove their citizenship.