Assam Electoral Roll Revision? What Ex-NRC Coordinator Suggests to ECI?

Former NRC State Coordinator and retired IAS officer Hitesh Dev Sarma has suggested the Election Commission of India (ECI) to incorporate key verification methods from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updation process into the ongoing electoral roll revision in Assam.

In a letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. Dev Sarma welcomed ECI’s decision to undertake an intensive revision of the electoral roll in Assam, particularly in light of the recent detection of foreign nationals in Bihar’s voter list. “The situation of Assam is graver than Bihar or any other state of India so far as the electoral roll is concerned,” he stated.

Drawing from his decades of experience, Sarma, who served as Executive Director and later State Coordinator of the NRC between 2014 and 2022, offered detailed suggestions for strengthening the voter verification process in Assam, a state with a long history of illegal immigration and complex citizenship issues.

He proposed the adoption of the “Family Tree Matching” method, which was a key tool in the NRC verification process. The technique involved collecting family data from all descendants of a “legacy person” (a citizen before the 1971 cut-off date) and using software to compare and match information across family trees. 

He wrote, "The “Family Tree Matching” was introduced as a remedy to this. In the Family Tree Matching process, all the offspring of a ‘Legacy Person’ from whom lineage is claimed were asked to submit their family details, which were then compared and matched through a software with the other family trees submitted by descendants of the same legacy person. Thus, there appears a mismatch as and when there is an attempt to claim false lineage, since elaborate checking can easily expose the names of those persons who are not biological descendants of the legacy person. 

According to Sarma, this method was particularly effective in detecting imposters who attempted to falsely claim descent using fraudulently acquired, though officially genuine, documents. He noted, "The mechanism was designed to be such that the Family Tree of the genuine offspring matches with each other. And the Family Tree of the imposters, who attempt to assume descendance through pre-1971 legacy documents as their ancestors, does not match with that of the genuine offspring."

The former NRC coordinator further highlighted that most of the family tree data collected during the NRC process is still available with the NRC authority, and urged the ECI to seek access to this data with the permission of the Supreme Court, under whose direct supervision the NRC was conducted.

“Especially without the family tree verification, any type of authentication is likely to fail under the present context,” he cautioned.

The letter also mentioned that the cut-off date for citizenship in Assam is March 25, 1971, due to the provisions under Section 6A of the Citizenship Act. Illegal immigration from Bangladesh has continued since then, and distinguishing post-1971 migrants remains a challenge, as they are often indistinguishable from Indian citizens in terms of language, religion, or appearance.

"In case of Assam, to understand the problem, one may look into the history and demography of the State. Unlike the other States, the cut off date for citizenship in Assam is 25th March, 1971, as the East Pakistani nationals entering Assam till 1971 were granted citizenship under 6 A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (amended) and infiltration from Bangladesh is continuing till date. It is difficult to identify the illegal migrants from Bangladesh as they cannot be differentiated from the persons coming to India   prior to 1971 on the basis of religion, language spoken, looks etc. in Assam, for enrolling in NRC (or Electoral Roll), the persons born after 25th March, 1971 have to submit two documents. One document to establish his identity (means post 1971 document) and the other document is to draw linkage from a person who lived in India prior to 1971," he further wrote.

Sarma also expressed satisfaction over the appointment of Vivek Joshi, IAS (Retired), as one of the Election Commissioners, noting that Joshi had personal experience with the NRC exercise in his capacity as the then Registrar General of India. “His experience will certainly help in publishing a flawless electoral roll in Assam,” he added.

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