Only 3-6 lakh people may apply under CAA in Assam, not 1.5 crore: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that only 3-6 lakh people, and not 1.5 crore people as claimed by some, will apply for citizenship in Assam under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Sarma stressed that a clear picture of the implementation of CAA will emerge before Assam votes in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19.

“The CAA rules were announced last week and by April 19, we’ll have around 40 days. This will be enough time to understand the actual scenario. 13 Hindu families in Gujarat have already been granted citizenship with CAA but in Assam, not many people have applied till now,” he said in an interview with a local news channel.

He said that many families, especially Hindu Bengalis, entered Assam from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971, the cutoff date for being entitled to get Indian citizenship, and some of them returned as well.

“Many of these families were denied ration cards by the authorities at that time, so they only had one document, the refugee registration cards issued by border authorities. But Prateek Hajela (former state coordinator of NRC) didn’t allow these cards in the NRC updation process, due to this, many names were excluded,” Sarma said.

He said that around 16 lakh names were excluded from the final draft of NRC, which was published in August 2019 and it has 7 lakh Muslims apart from Assamese Hindus including Koch Rajbangshi, Kalita, Das etc.

“In my opinion, 3 to 6 lakh people will apply with CAA and not 20, 18 or 15 lakhs or 1.5 crores, which some people are claiming. It can be 10% more or less but not more than 6 lakhs,” he said.

Sarma said some agitationists were spreading lies to scare common people.

“They are saying 1.5 crore Hindu population decreased in Bangladesh and those people have entered Assam. But the fact is that 2 crore Muslim population increased in that country, so the Hindu population reduced because they converted. The protesters won’t tell you the other side,” Sarma said.

The chief minister said that he saw a video of three girls from Dibrugarh University crying out of fear.

“They said that a large number of trucks are waiting near the international border and they will enter Assam once CAA is operationalised. The girls were innocent and believed in rumours but the fact is, that nobody from Bangladesh entered our state after the CAA rules were announced,” he said.

The Centre on March 11 notified the CAA rules, operationalising the contentious law that paves the way for citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014. Parliament passed the law in December 2019.