IMAGE: Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrives for the 68th Plenary Session of North Eastern Council at Administrative Staff College, in Guwahati, on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday asserted that the Centre will not touch Article 371 which grants special provisions to the Northeast.
Article 370 was clearly temporary in nature but Article 371 is about special provisions in the Northeast and there is a vast difference between the two, Shah said while
addressing the 68th plenary session of the North East Council in Guwahati.
“After abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, there were attempts to misinform and misguide the people of Northeast that Article 371 would also be scrapped by the Centre”, he said.
“I have clarified in Parliament that this is not going to happen and I am saying it again today in the presence of eight chief ministers of North East that the Centre will not touch Article 371”, Shah added.
Shah also said that no ‘illegal migrant’ will be allowed to stay in the country and that the National Register of Citizens exercise in Assam was completed in ‘time-bound manner’.
Shah, also the chairman of the NEC, was addressing chief ministers of eight northeastern states, in his inaugural address.
“Various people have raised all kinds of questions on the National Register of Citizens (NRC). I want to clearly say that not a single illegal migrant will be allowed to stay in the country by the Government of India. That is our commitment”, the Union home minister asserted.
Referring to the just published NRC, Shah said, “It was completed in a time-bound manner.”
The meeting was also addressed by Union Minister of State in-charge of DoNER and NEC vice chairman Jitendra Singh, official sources said.
A total of 3,30,27,661 people had applied to be included in the NRC. Of them, 3,11,21,004 have been included in the updated final list and 19,06,657 excluded, the NRC State Coordinator’s office had said on August 31.
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