Several Assamese organisations on Saturday expressed their disappointment with the final National Register of Citizens list. As many as 3.11 crore people found their names in the list, but 19 lakh were excluded.

The All Assam Students Union on Saturday said that it was unhappy with the exclusion figure in the final NRC, and will appeal against it in the Supreme Court, PTI reported.

“We are not happy at all,” organisation’s General Secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said. “It seems there were some deficiencies in the updation process. We believe that it is an incomplete NRC. We will appeal to the Supreme Court to remove all the faults and discrepancies in this NRC.” Gogoi said the final figure of exclusion was not near the figures officially announced by authorities on various occasions.

The Assam Public Works, which was the first organisation to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to update the NRC, too expressed its unhappiness, Northeast Now reported. “With this NRC, it is not possible to deport the illegal foreigners from Assam in next 30 years time,” Assam Public Works chief Abhijit Sarma said. “This is the reason we have demanded the re-verification of the draft NRC. We have appealed five times to the apex court seeking re-verification of the draft NRC, which was not accepted by the apex court.”

Sarma said the organisation will seek the intervention of President Ram Nath Kovind in the matter. “We have got a big zero from this NRC exercise,” he added, according to the Hindustan Times. “The figure of 1.9 million includes nearly 400,000 who didn’t file claims and also many indigenous Assamese.”

Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader Akhil Gogoi said the number of exclusions in the list was far lesser than statements made by political leaders prior to the publication of the list. “We hope that the petitioners, who had approached the Supreme Court to order updation of NRC, will approach the apex court again and we will get a completely correct NRC,” he added.

The Asom Gana Parishad, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state, claimed that the number of exclusions seemed to be too small, PTI reported. Asom Gana Parishad President and state Agriculture Minister Atul Bora said: “We are not at all happy about it. The figure of 19,06,657 exclusions in the final NRC is too less and we just cannot accept it ... There is scope for its review in the Supreme Court. The people of Assam had hoped for a free and fair NRC but it now seems that the very existence of the Assamese will be further threatened.”

Earlier in the day, Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the Supreme Court should allow re-verification of the names on the final list. “Names of many Indian citizens who migrated from Bangladesh as refugees prior to 1971 have not been included in the NRC because authorities refused to accept refugee certificates,” Sarma said.

The minister had said on Friday that the NRC in its present form will not help in weeding out foreigners from Assam. He also claimed that the central and state governments were devising new ways to eliminate foreigners as the NRC had not met the wishes of locals.

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