No genuine Indian citizen will be victimised in NRC exercise: Ram Madhav

Kolkata, Oct 5: Observing that no country tolerates illegal immigrants, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav on Friday defended the NRC exercise in Assam and said no genuine Indian citizen will be victimised. There is no controversy in Assam over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the state is going through the process peacefully, he said.

"The process is being monitored on a daily basis by the Supreme Court", the BJP leader added. "The process is on. No single genuine Indian voter will be victimised. Nothing will be done against the law of the land. We are following the constitutional process. There are several bridges to cross," said Madhav, who is also the BJP's in-charge of the Northeast.

Speaking at the 'India Today Conclave East 2018' here, he said the people who were left out of the final NRC list have two months to submit necessary documents to get their names enlisted and they will be studied. "They (people left out) will have access to the Foreigners' Tribunal. After that, they can even go to the high court...Genuine citizens will come back," he said.

Asked about the concerns of the BJP's allies over the way the NRC exercise has been undertaken, Madhav said, "We will take care of our allies. We will take everybody along in this exercise." "We will go back to the people of Assam and assure them that Clause 6 of the Assam Accord (which stipulates constitutional protection to the Assamese) will be implemented in letter and spirit," he said.

Hitting out at the Opposition, the BJP leader said, "Hearts of some people are bleeding for the infiltrators. They are not thinking of the people of Assam whose jobs, land and livelihood are at stake." Asked whether the NRC exercise will take place in West Bengal, as was hinted by the BJP's co-observer of the state Kailash Vijayvargiya, he said, "The NRC, as on date, is limited to Assam. Let us complete the process."

Madhav said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a former MP, had raised the issue of infiltration in Parliament and stated that the erstwhile Left Front government in the state was using the infiltrators as vote bank. He claimed the Meghalaya government and a tribal organisation in Tripura want similar exercises in their states. Responding to a question about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, he said it has nothing to do with the NRC exercise.

"It is applicable to the entire country. The NRC is a different exercise", Madhav said. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955. A key amendment in the Bill seeks to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India.

Asked about deporting Rohingya Muslims, the BJP leader said, "We don't see religion in everything. There are Hindu Rohingyas as well. We will deport the Rohingyas." On Thursday, India deported seven Rohingya immigrants, who had been staying illegally in Assam, to their country of origin Myanmar.

PTI