Won't let nation turn into 'Dharmshala', NRC to be implemented across India: BJP MP Om Prakash Mathur

ANI photo

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party is confident of winning the much-awaited 2019 general elections, said Rajya Sabha MP, Om Prakash Mathur. The BJP leader further said that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which has been executed in Assam under the Supreme Court's direction, will be implemented across the country.

"We'll win in 2019, NRC has now been executed only in Assam under Supreme Court's direction but we'll implement it across the country. We won't let the nation turn into a 'Dharmshala'. Infiltrators will be ousted legally. No Indian citizen will be thrown out," OP Mathur told news agency ANI.

On Sunday, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh spoke on the similar lines, hitting back at a Congress leader questioning if the country is a shelter home that everyone can stay here. 

Amid the debate between opposition parties and the Centre over the NRC in Assam, Congress leader Charan Das Mahant advocated for having a place for guests' in the country. 

The Centre has been facing heat ever since the Assam government released the final draft of NRC on July 30 which excluded several lakhs of people, terming them as 'illegal immigrants'. Over 40 lakh people in Assam have been left out from the NRC, which has been being prepared to identify illegal migrants in the state.

While the opposition parties have been vociferous against the draft, BJP has defended it saying that the NRC is based on the Assam accord that was signed by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. BJP chief Amit Shah claimed that the Congress had no problems with the NRC when the Assam Accord was signed but is raising objections now. 

The BJP has been alleging that the for the sake of vote bank politics, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is not making his stand clear on illegal migration from Bangladesh.

The Congress, however, responded saying it is not opposed to the NRC but to the way it was being implemented in Assam.

The NRC draft features the names, addresses and photographs of all Indian citizens, who have been residing in the northeastern state before March 25, 1971.