Mamata Banerjee using NRC to create fear ahead of polls: Himanta Sarma

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is attempting to instil "fear" among Bengali communities ahead of the upcoming state Assembly elections on the pretext of National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Assam and West Bengal are going to assembly polls next year.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while talking to media persons on Thursday when asked about the West Bengal chief minister’s allegation that BJP wants to do NRC in Bengal, Sarma said, “ Who has asked her to obey the NRC? She is speaking unnecessarily. She is suddenly saying that she will not obey the NRC. Where is the NRC? Nobody has ordered any NRC.”


Sarma said, “This is her tactic to create fear among Bengalis and get their vote. She did not talk about NRC for the last 5 years. Only when the Election is coming, she has started talking about all these things.”

Banerjee has pointed to notices served by the foreigners’ tribunal allegedly to the residents of West Bengal.

The Chief Minister alleged that the ‘double engine government’ is trying to push citizens into detention by falsely branding them as Rohingyas and attempting to push them back into Bangladesh.

Assam was the first state in the country where NRC exercise was rolled out, NRC is a supreme Court monitored exercise aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants.

The supplementary NRC list, published on August 31, 2019, had found more than 31.1 million people eligible to be included in the registry while leaving out over 1.9 million people.