The BJP today launched a veiled attack on the Supreme Court from the legislative safety of the Assam Assembly and picked up NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela as their prime target showing enough determination to stop the NRC from publishing it on August 31.
Assam Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary raised the matter in the zero hours and fired series of salvos on the Supreme Court from the shoulder of Mr Hajela.
He was careful in avoiding direct reference of the Supreme Court but blasted the man and the process overseen by the Supreme Court making it abundantly clear that their main target was the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who had been dogmatically pursuing the NRC for past three years.
Mr Gogoi has been credited and hailed for trying to end the vexed issue by having an NRC in the state.
Going one step further, the BJP MLA Shiladitya Dev openly said that the Supreme Court had infringed on the areas of legislature giving enough indication that BJP might be willing to confront the Supreme Court on the area of its jurisdiction.
Thisis noteworthy that the Supreme Court has been overlooking the NRC processmaking the NRC authorities only answerable to the Supreme Court, shutting outthe legislature, Assam and Central Government from decision making oroverseeing the whole process.
TheBJP today inside the Assam Assembly attacked Mr Hajela. Poor Hajela is an AssamCadre IAS officer who has been directed by the Supreme Court only to report tohim and not to others
This has infuriated the BJP which alleged that there was more NRC exclusion in the indigenous populated districts than the bordering areas. They also released the whole series of data in the Assam Assembly. But the authenticity of the data is not yet known.
MrPatowary and MLA Shiladitya Dev and MLA Numal Monim alleged that Mr Hajela wasleading a shady NRC operation and more time should be given for re-verificationand hundreds and thousands of Bangladeshis were included while genuine Indianswere excluded.
Assam Government had twice pleaded re-verification before the Supreme Court but both the times it was rejected on the strength of Mr Hajela's assurance that reverification was done already.
TodayCongress and AIUDF opposed the whole debate saying that under no rule a matterof the Supreme Court can be discussed inside the Assam Assembly. But the BJPdominated Assam Assembly today brought itself to an uncharted territory ofjurisdiction.
It was evident today that the ruling party would stop the publication of the NRC on August 31 by hook or cook. At this moment there are no legal hurdle in publishing the NRC on August 31 but both State and Central government are burning the midnight oil to find a way to stop it.
The BJP and AGP feel that NRC was full of mistakes, while Congress, AIUDF and AASU as well as KMSS and AASMU feel that BJP wants to drag the NRC and do not want to end the 40-year-old issue.
