Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh says 'No Indian national will be excluded from NRC draft'
Urging people to have no fret regarding the NRC draft, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday assured that no Indian national would be excluded from the list.
"Every person living in North-East wants that there should be a list on who is a foreigner and who belongs to this country. That is why you have seen how Assam recently saw the NRC draft. There have been a few complaints regarding that too. But, whatever is happening is under the supervision of the Supreme Court," Singh said at the Nest Fest here.
"I don't want to talk in details about the problems, but I do want to assure you that whosoever is an Indian national will definitely be included in the NRC draft. Nobody should have any qualms regarding this," he added.
The first draft of NRC for Assam was released on the intervening night of December 31, 2017 and January 1, 2018 containing the name of 1.9 crore Assamese. The second and final draft, which was released on July 30, included names of 2.89 crore people, out of 3.29 crore applicants in Assam, leaving out names of nearly 40 lakh people.
NRC is a register containing names of Indian citizens, which was prepared for the only time in 1951 and is being updated for only Assam to weed out the illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, hailing the North-Eastern region, Rajnath said: "People say that Jammu and Kashmir is the 'head' of India and North-East states are the hands and soldiers of the country. However, I want to say that I consider North-East as a piece of our heart. There was a time when there was sense of alienation in the mindset of people living in North-East. But when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister, he said, 'North East is a piece of our heart. We can't dream of developing India by neglecting the North-East region'."
"Our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) says that we want to reach the goal of 'New India' by 2022. Therefore, until North-East is developed and a new North-East is made, till that time our goal of 'New India' cannot be reached. There has been a fast improvement in the law and order there. There is no dearth of talent among the youths of North-East. There are a lot of officers from North-East in Delhi Police. I want to tell all the students from North-East that wherever they face any kind of problem, they can directly get in touch with me," he added.
(ANI)
