The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is an exercise to identify Indian citizens living in Assam to check illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The previous draft was published in July 2018 and included 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore applicants excluding around 40 lakh people.
What are these district-wise figures?
The Assam government recently released the district-wise figures of people excluded from the draft NRC.
It used the above data to argue that the process of NRC was flawed.
The release of district-wise data came weeks ahead of the scheduled publication of the final NRC on August 31, 2019.
These figures show how many people in each district were included and excluded in the draft NRC.
What did the state government say?
According to the data, 12.15% applicants’ names were excluded from the final draft.
In districts adjacent to the Bangladesh border, like South Salmara, 7.22% applicants were excluded from the draft NRC. This figure in Dhubri is 8.26% and in Karimganj is 7.67%.
But districts where indigenous people live like Karbi Anglong, the figure is 14.31% and in upper Assam’s Tinsukia, this figure is 13.25% where sons of the soil have been living for ages.
Why do district figures matter?
The government has argued that the inclusion rate is higher in districts associated with migration and lower in other districts.
The argument is based on the assumption that districts close to the border with Bangladesh are bound to have a high percentage of undocumented or illegal migrants.
The data presented also show that Muslim-majority districts (not border districts) like Morigaon, Nagaon and Barpeta garnered high exclusion rates 15.04%, 14.12% and 13.4% exclusions respectively.
Why has BJP tabled these now?
Last month, the government and the state BJP had demanded a sample revivification of a sample of names in the draft.
This appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court. Now, the government has cited these data to justify this appeal.
The Centre and the state had both moved the SC demanding re-verification of 20% names included in the draft in border districts and of 10% of the names in other districts.
However, the NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela told the court that the re-verification had already happened.
After the draft NRC was published in 2018, those left out had filed claims for inclusion.
He told the court that in the course of consideration of these claims, re-verification of 27% of the names was done, which dismissed the government’s appeal based on Hajela’s submission.
In renewing the demand based on the data it presented, the government said it did not think this incidental verification was enough to ensure an error-free NRC.
