'Conduct NRC in Parliament': Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury takes dig at Centre

Miffed at the final list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam that excluded over 19 lakh people, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that government should also conduct NRC in Parliament. The Centre came out with the list on Saturday.

Addressing the media persons after the senior Congress leaders met at 10 Janpath on the final NRC list issue on Saturday, Adhir said the government failed to properly handle the NRC in Assam.

"The country belongs to them, they should conduct NRC wherever they wish to. They were not able to handle Assam NRC, they may go to other states also. They should conduct NRC in Parliament also. I am also an outsider as my father lived in Bangladesh," said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha.

Present in the meeting were interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior Congress leaders like AK Antony, Gaurav Gogoi and others.

"No genuine citizen should be ousted in any condition and all the genuine citizens must be provided protection," he said.

On the other hand, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said that NRC is needed in Delhi as the illegal immigrants who have settled here are dangerous. With polls around the corner, Tiwari said that having NRC-like exercise in Delhi will be part of party's election manifesto as well.

The final list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was published on Saturday, excluding over 19 lakh people. Whereas over three crore people have been found eligible for the inclusion in the final NRC, Prateek Hajela, the State Coordinator of the NRC, said in an official statement.

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.