Raj Thackeray's party leader demands NRC-like move for states, calls it 'SRC'

As the BJP government at the Centre is committed to implementing a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the entire country, a leader of Raj Thackeray-led MNS has demanded a similar step for all the states. Jumping into the NRC debate, MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande said that like NRC there must be a SRC - State Register of Citizens for every state. Taking to Twitter on Monday morning, he said that SRC would give justice to the locals in the state and would also act as a restriction.

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Here is his tweet:

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Shiv Sena's stand on NRC

Even as MNS chief Raj Thackeray has not yet given a statement on NRC, Shiv Sena has openly supported the Modi government in the move. As Centre had published the final National Register of Citizens for Assam, the then Union Minister and Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant demanded a similar exercise in Mumbai. He had said that it will allow to "weed out a large number of immigrants illegally living" in the city. He had claimed that Sena was the first to have raised the issue of Bangladeshis illegally residing in India. Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut had also claimed that there are nearly 1 crore Bangladeshis in greater Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and in the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region but they are nowhere on record. However, it remains to be seen how the party, now in power in Maharashtra will respond to NRC with its ally NCP and Congress against it. 

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What is the NRC?

The NRC was first prepared in 1951 under the purview of the Census Act, 1948.  An updation process was started in 2013 and ended with the receipt of forms by the NRC authorities on 31 August 2015. The process aimed at separating genuine Indian citizens from undocumented immigrants living in Assam. As per NRC terms, a resident has to prove that they or their ancestors entered Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971. Anyone failing to do so will be declared a foreigner.

According to the NRC press release, 3,30,27,661 Assam residents have had to prove their Indian citizenship. Previously in December 2017, the first draft was published in which 140 lakh people were included. Further, in July 2018, the second draft was published where more than 40 lakh people were excluded. Apart from these drafts, an additional exclusion list was published on June 26, 2019, where names of 1,02,463 people were published. These persons were earlier included in the draft.

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