“The State Cabinet did decide to drop the cases of Koch-Rajbanshi and Gurkha people from the FTs, but there has been no such special decision for the others,” Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday (August 7, 2025) criticised his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee for “trying to scare the Bengali people by dangling the sword of the National Register of Citizens (NRC)” ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
Assembly elections in Assam and West Bengal are due early next year.
Mr. Sarma said Ms. Banerjee’s concerns over the NRC were unfounded.
“She suddenly says she is not going to obey the NRC. Who has asked her to obey the NRC? Where is the NRC? Nobody has ordered the NRC,” he told journalists in Guwahati on Thursday (August 7, 2025) night.
“She is instilling fear in the minds of Bengali people to get their votes. In the last five years, she has not discussed the NRC. Now, she is talking about all these things as the elections are approaching,” he said.
Ms. Banerjee has been flagging some “NRC” notices issued to residents of West Bengal, mostly Bengali Hindus, by Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in Assam. One such case was that of Uttam Kumar Brajabasi, a resident of Dinhata in Cooch Behar for 50 years.
Mr. Sarma claimed Mr. Brajabasi was a citizen of Assam who had temporarily gone to West Bengal, and that the notice issued to him was part of a judicial process.
Refuting reports, the Chief Minister also said the Assam government had not taken any “special decision” to drop the cases of non-Muslim illegal migrants, who entered India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before 2015, from the FTs.
“The State Cabinet did decide to drop the cases of Koch-Rajbanshi and Gurkha people from the FTs, but there has been no such special decision for the others. The State government has nothing to do additionally for people provided security and protection under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act,” Mr. Sarma said.
“The case [related to the CAA] is in the Supreme Court. Unless the Supreme Court strikes it down, that is the law of the land,” he added.
According to official records, as of July 15, eight people in Assam had applied for Indian citizenship under the CAA, and only two had appeared for an interview.
The 1951 NRC in Assam was updated under the watch of the Supreme Court. More than 19.06 lakh of the 3.3 crore applicants were left out of the complete draft published in August 2019.
Published – August 08, 2025 09:00 pm IST
