Ram Madhav compliments NRC team, says Assam govt taking all steps to maintain law, order

BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav on Saturday complimented the National Register of Citizens (NRC) officials for the publication of the final list of NRC and stated that the Assam government is taking all steps to maintain law and order in the state.

"National Register of Citizens NRC finally published. Compliments to the official team. Details like the list of the 19 lac names excluded etc are still awaited. Sonowal Govt in Assam is taking all steps to maintain L&O," he tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Prateek Hajela, State Coordinator of the NRC has said that over three crore people have been found eligible for the inclusion in the final list.

"A total of 3,11,21,004 persons are found eligible for inclusion in final NRC leaving out 19,06,657 persons, including those who did not submit their claims," Hajela, said.

He, however, asserted that those who are not satisfied with the outcome of the claims can appeal before the Foreigners Tribunals.

The status of both inclusion and exclusion of the people from the list can be viewed online on the NRC website.

The list has segregated Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the state from Bangladesh after 1971.

The process of receipt of NRC application forms had started during the end of May in 2015 and ended on August 31 in 2015. A total of 3,30,27,661 members had applied through 68,37,660 applications.

Following this, the applications submitted by the people were taken up for scrutiny to determine the eligibility of their inclusion in the NRC.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had earlier clarified that non-inclusion of a person's name in the NRC will not amount to his or her being declared a "foreigner".

Those who will be excluded from the list will get an opportunity to file an appeal within 120 days in the Foreigners' Tribunal (FT), as per the direction given by the Union Home Ministry, said Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

NRC is a register containing names of Indian citizens, which was prepared for the only time in 1951. It is being updated for Assam as of now to weed out illegal immigrants.

The first list of NRC was first published in Assam in 1951. When the draft NRC was published on July 30, 2018, there was a huge controversy over the exclusion of 40.7 lakh people from it.

( With inputs from ANI )