Assam's NRC: Supreme Court says filing of objections to start on September 25

The Supreme Court said Wednesday that the filing of objections against Assam's second draft National Register of Citizens will begin on September 25 and stay open for a period of 60 days till November 25.

The order was passed by a division bench of the court headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

The NRC was mandated by the Supreme Court to investigate who is a citizen of Assam, and therefore of India. Assam has over the years seen large-scale immigration from Bangladesh.

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The second draft of Assam's NRC was published in July — with 40 lakh of the state's residents left off the list.

It will be those 40 lakh people who will be filing their objections to their exclusion from the list.

There had been panic after the publication of the second draft of the register, largely among the state's Muslim population, but Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has since said that nobody is going to be deported. And that everybody left off the list will have full recourse to the law.

But BJP President Amit Shah has said at least twice that his party will not go easy on the NRC issue and that every single Bangladeshi infiltrator will be identified and deported. The BJP is currently in power in Assam.

Some sections of the BJP have also said that an NRC-like exercise should be carried out in every Indian state.

It is unclear what will happen to the people who finally find themselves excludedfrom the NRC especially since Bangladesh refuses to accept migration has taken place from it to India.

Some commentators have gone so far as to say the NRC will end up creating a "stateless"people like the Rohingya.

In Assam, however, there is widespread public support for the register.