No Aadhaar for those who did not apply for Assam NRC, says Himanta Biswa Sarma

The Assam government would reject applications for Aadhaar cards if a resident or their family members did not apply to be a part of the National Register of Citizens, said Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday.

Following a meeting of the state Cabinet, Sarma told reporters that a proposal for a standard operating procedure to ensure stricter guidelines had been approved.

“Scores of infiltrators have been nabbed by Assam Police, Tripura Police and BSF [Border Security Force] in the last two months,” The Indian Express quoted Sarma as saying. “That is why infiltration from Bangladesh is a concern for us.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party has often labelled the Bengal-Muslim community, or Miya Muslims, in Assam as “infiltrators” who are allegedly taking over resources, jobs and land of the indigenous people. The community has also been portrayed as posing a threat to Assamese culture and identity.

“We need to strengthen our system and that is why we decided to toughen the Aadhaar card mechanism,” Sarma added.

Aadhaar is a unique 12-digit number identity number issued to residents of India by a statutory body, the Unique Identification Authority of India.

Assam published the National Register of Citizens on August 31, 2019, with the aim to separate Indian citizens from undocumented immigrants living in the state. Residents had to prove that they or their ancestors had entered Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971 in order for them to be included in the list.

Over 19 lakh persons, or 5.77% of the applicants, were left out of the final list. The National Register of Citizens is yet to be notified.

On September 7, Sarma announced that the process of issuing Aadhaar numbers would be “strictly regulated” in Assam. He stated that it would be mandatory for an applicant to furnish their National Register of Citizens application number, which had been provided to them while applying in 2015.

“Only applicants who applied [to be included in] NRC can procure Aadhaar, irrespective of whether they made it to the NRC or not,” the chief minister had said. “This will make sure that no suspected foreigners can access Aadhaar cards in Assam and it will stop the influx of illegal foreigners.”

Lawyers and activists told Scroll that the state government did not have the power to amend the eligibility criteria for the identity document as it would entail amending the Aadhaar Act and the concept of Aadhaar, which would have larger ramifications.

On Wednesday, the chief minister said that the general administration department of the state government would be the nodal agency for implementing the new standard operating procedure for issuing Aadhaar.

This would be overseen by the additional district commissioners at the district level and the circle officers at the revenue circle level.

As per the procedure, the Unique Identification Authority of India would send a new application for Aadhaar to the state government for verification, Sarma said. After this, the circle officer would check if the applicant or their family had applied for inclusion in the National Register for Citizens.

“If it is found that there was an application for NRC, the circle officer will go for field-level verification as per Supreme Court directives,” he said, according to The Indian Express. “After the officer is fully convinced, the Aadhaar will be approved.”