No illegal immigrant will be allowed in India: Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said no "illegal immigrant" will be allowed to stay in the country and that the NRC exercise in Assam was completed in "time-bound manner". Shah, also the chairman of the North Eastern Council (NEC), was addressing chief ministers of eight northeastern states, in his inaugural address at the 68th plenary session of the NEC in Guwahati.

"Various people have raised all kinds of questions on the National Register of Citizens (NRC). I want to clearly say that not a single illegal migrant will be allowed to stay in the country by the Government of India. That is our commitment", the Union Home Minister asserted. Referring to the just published NRC, Shah said, "lt was completed in a time-bound manner".

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The meeting was also addressed by Union Minister of State in charge of DoNER and NEC vice-chairman Jitendra Singh, official sources said. A total of 3,30,27,661 people had applied to be included in the NRC. Of them, 3,11,21,004 have been included in the updated final list and 19,06,657 excluded, the NRC State Coordinator's office had said on August 31.

Shah on Northeast

Amit Shah also assured that the Centre would not tamper with Article 371 in the Northeast. The land like that of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh is protected under Article 371.

“After the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, people in the Northeast were misinformed that Article 371 would also be scrapped by the Centre,” the Home Minister said, adding, “In a democracy every party has the right to criticise the scrapping of Article 370 but this was a ploy to give a message to the Northeast that Article 371 will also go”. 

He said those who did not want the Northeast to be peaceful and on a par with the mainstream in respect of development, they were trying to create hurdles. Stating that Article 370 was a temporary provision, he said there was a vast difference between Article 370 and Article 371 which grants special provisions in the Northeast. 

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(With inputs from PTI)