Assam Andolan echoes: AASU urges EC to prepare voter list free of foreigners

Guwahati, Aug 20: The situation in Assam cannot be compared with other states of the country, and the Election Commission of India (ECI) should make all-out efforts to prepare a voters' list, which is free from the names of foreign nationals. This is the demand of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU).

Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said that in other parts of the country, during the intensive revision of the electoral rolls, names of duplicate voters and those who died would be left out, But in case of Assam, the situation is totally different as the names of a large number of foreigners are included in the electoral rolls. "It is the responsibility of the ECI to prepare a correct voters' list, and we hope that the ECI will give special emphasis in this regard," he added.

Bhattacharya pointed out that the Assam movement started when the presence of a large number of suspected persons was noticed during the revision of electoral rolls in the Mangaldoi Parliamentary constituency. The people of Assam had opposed the holding of elections on the basis of a faulty voters' list in 1983.

The AASU chief adviser said that only during the tenure of TN Shesan as the Chief Election Commissioner, an intensive revision of the voters' list was carried out, and a large number of voters were declared as "doubtful". But subsequently, no serious effort was made to correct the electoral rolls, he said.

Bhattacharya further said that the best possible way was to correct the voters' list on the basis of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). But the Government has not yet been able to prepare a correct NRC. He also said that before going for the re-vision of the voters' lists of Assam, the ECI will have to formulate proper modalities, otherwise it would turn into a meaningless exercise.